


A Thousand Stars Between Teeth

by BelowBedlam



Series: Verity [8]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst, F/M, Fluff, Friendship, Frottage, Light Bondage, Multi, Post-Dragon Age: Inquisition, Pre-Trespasser, Rivaini People, Rough Sex, Smut, Tal-Vashoth Iron Bull
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-20
Updated: 2016-07-12
Packaged: 2018-05-08 00:51:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 26
Words: 96,611
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5477027
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BelowBedlam/pseuds/BelowBedlam
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sequel to The Moon In Her Mouth.  Kimani navigates the aftermath of Inquisition with the Anchor still firmly embedded in her skin. But neither it nor the Well of Sorrows will leave her be, and an old friend reappears to sow seeds of hope and doubt in her Dreams.</p><p>Featuring: Trevelyan/Lia Family Values, Rivaini diasporic feels,  and the Iron Bull's continued struggle with his new place as Tal-Vashoth.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue: Lost Ones

**Author's Note:**

> Aaaand we're back! This is the long-form sequel to The Moon In Her Mouth. It will include the events of the Trespasser DLC.  
> If you haven't read the short fic "Runaways," I would suggest it as it sets up a subplot involving Kimani's family. Click the series link (Verity) and it should all be in order. Other short fics in the series are placed in order, but all aren't necessary to read this. 
> 
> Okay, here we go.

It should be omen enough that Kimani wakes to a head full of static, her hair tousled by her bedding and shocking her fingers when she tugs at it before searching for her scarf, lost in the night. Or that her eyes are puffed shut for five minutes until they yield to wet, hot rag pressed against them. Or that her back aches magnificently as though she’d slept crookedly against Bull, when he would be waking in his own quarters this morning.

Kimani doesn’t believe in omens but these should be omen enough. Or reminder enough. She drinks tea from her porcelain set and stuffs her jaws with day-old bread, spooning bitter jam onto her tongue between swallows, and doesn’t remember a thing. No conscious twinge of mind. No sense of foreboding but then, she’s four months gone from botched apocalypse. It haunts the flat, washed-out mortal dreams allowed to her by _nesomni_ which is all well and good, but what’s a nightmare if it can’t grab you by the throat?

Not much. Not much. So she finishes her breakfast with another cup of tea, strong and steeped long with coneflower and cloves and peppermint leaves in a cloth bag. When she’s done she pops the bag in her mouth to suck as she dresses herself.

Still nothing, not even a shiver of some ghost reflex. It will bother her later, but so many things will. Now, she only turns questioningly when Nashan’s familiar knock rattles her door, carrying up the stairs.

Kimani opens the door barefoot, thinking little of a bleary-eyed Nashan. “Morning. You’re up early.”

“I’m not interrupting?” Comes the dry morning voice, cracking with a yawn swollen in her throat. Nashan’s face is still puffy, her nose flushed deep red beneath umber skin. She rubs one bare foot over the other, arms crossed tightly against her ribs beneath a layer of scratchy wool that dusts her calves, hair tied at her nape. She _looks_ as though she’d fallen out of bed before running here.

 Kimani tilts her head, finally sensing imbalance. Something is wrong. “Not interrupting,” She says softly, frowning. “What is it?”

Nashan tries a smile and fails, lowering her eyes. Kimani follows, ducking, trying to find her gaze.

“Tell me,” she presses. “I’m worried, now.”

Nashan shrugs. “Today’s the day.”

“The day.” Kimani stares blankly. “It is the fourteenth of Blooming—Spirits.” Suddenly she’s boulder-heavy, leaning against the door frame. Old, hazy memories fill the empty, sleepy spaces in her head. “Oh, my.” How had she forgotten? “The day.”

“The _day_ ,” Nashan murmurs, nodding and turning on her heel, feet slap-slapping against the stone floors as she shuffles back to her quarters. Kimani watches her for a moment, then pulls herself to her feet, closes the door softly behind her, and follows.

…

There is a gap in time in 9:40 Dragon, because Kimani doesn’t know what happens in Dairsmuid on 14th of Bloomingtide. Not until she receives word from her mother, whom she hasn’t seen in the Fade in weeks. It comes on the 6th of Justinian, smelling of roses that must still grow in the garden. Asha’s handwriting is painfully neat; only the word _annulment_ wavers.

It might have remained distant, the feeling of loss, if it had been contained to Asha’s letter. Had it not seeped into Ostwick Circle, rolled off the tongues of spiteful creatures. Had it not reached _her_ apprentices. It might have been alright.

In retrospect, Kimani thinks it was inevitable. They would have always made it there. She would have always ended up with blood on her hands.

…

Nashan’s room is messy, full of pillows and trinkets and the few things she’d brought with her, the ragged old stave in a corner instead of destroyed as it should be, wretched thing that it was. She’s been snatching things that belong to no one, squirreling away the things Sera gifts to her as if she steals them. The colors clash; gold-tasseled throw pillows of midnight blue nestled against the soft pastels of silk bolsters sprawled across bright red sheets. Her new stave lay across her lap as she sits on her bed, twisting it in her hands as she tries, and fails, to speak.

Kimani will sit as long as she needs, both dreading and wanting the story her cousin wants to tell; Nashan had asked “do you know?” and something unreadable happened to her face when Kimani shook her head.

The event itself is an ocean apart, like everything else. Kimani had never been anywhere closer than her mother’s letter in her lap or the angry burn of her cheeks when the Templar’s tongue wagged.

“They made us leave early,” Nashan says finally, her voice cresting just above a whisper, and Kimani moves closer. “I was in Dairsmuid for a week, traveling with aunt Madrigal as she went to visit relatives making _qabaki sittu_ … mid-year port? Madrigal’s people are Antivan _aabahu_. They live on the water. We went to visit Gala and Akim, and they were…they were different. Strained. Even Akim, who was the jester. And when auntie suggested they come spend the night with us they refused, putting it off for a night when auntie’s relatives were on land.”

Kimani watches her cousin bow under the weight of memory, her willowy frame curled small, and puts a gentle arm around her. Nashan stiffens for half a moment before Kimani withdraws the arm, folding her hands in her lap and smiling reassuringly when Nashan darts wide eyes at her.

“It’s not you, Kimani, it’s-”

“It’s alright, I shouldn’t have presumed.”

Nashan blows hard through her nose, and nods. “It happened that same day. That evening. Auntie and I were eating with the _gana_ further into the city, while the Circle is on its outskirts in this little valley. Dairsmuid is massive. Still, we could see the fire. Just the tip of it. Mostly, we saw the black clouds. Oh...g _ana_ is who rules the city. Like a little royalty.”

Kimani nods quietly, jerkily, as her body freezes cold. Nashan folds her arms tightly against herself, crossing her legs. Kimani gives her space, inching toward the bed’s headboard.

“Enchanter Rivella had known they were coming. So did Gala and Akim. The whole damned _Circle_ knew. It had a plan; Rivella sent a messenger to the _gana_ of Dairsmuid just before the attack to inform her of what would happen. And to beseech her to stand down. _Let us protect you_. Fuck,” Nashan hisses as tears slip over high mahogany cheeks. She wipes them away. “Fuck this.”

“You can stop.”

“I can’t,” Nashan laughs, shrugging. “That’d be worse. She sent letters to everyone else; the other _gana,_ the head _laraak_ of respected clans, town-heads that bordered Dairsmuid. Rivella didn’t want reason for another Exalted March. She thought if they felt satisfied with their Annulment, they wouldn’t unleash their _hate_ on all of Rivain and knock it back to the blighted Storm Age.”

“I wanted to go back. I wanted to _fight_. The _gana_ herself body-blocked me, threatened to bind me up in bush magic I could even name. Madrigal was a mess. Gala is her son, Akim her nephew by marriage. Akim was everyone’s favorite nephew, cousin, uncle. He was the reason we even spoke to his side of the family again, after so long feuding. It was…he was so _good,_ cousin. He was _so_ good.”

“I am sorry to never have met him,” Kimani says quietly, meaning it. “There are so few good people in the world.”

“Because they get killed. The Seekers burned the _insabat_ to the ground. Killed most of the mages. Not all. Didn’t stop them from crowing that exact thing, though. _Enkidu_.” Nashan’s Rivaini slips when she’s emotional. Kimani rubs at the ache in her chest when she can only understand some of it, but that is to be expected. “My mother came for me and brought auntie’s daughter Alesseth to take her mother home; we left for home from Dairsmuid. I don’t know what happened at the compound, why mother didn’t wait for the funeral. I still don’t know. We mourned in Ostwick.”

“You, Asha and Tavi?”

“And my brother Sed, as well as others. There is a small community of Rivaini in Ostwick. Bigger ones up north, but few in Ostwick. We mourned from across the sea together. It wasn’t…it wasn’t right. Never felt right.”

Something rips deep in her chest. She didn’t know that, hadn’t known that when she was running from Templars and wondering where would keep her safe. It’s not the right time to ask about such communities in Ferelden.

“I’m glad you didn’t go back, Nashan.”

At this, the girl closes the space between them, leaning heavily against Kimani as she hugs her arm. Kimani looks down at her, but Nashan won’t meet her gaze.

“They’d have killed the shit out of me,” she agrees, chuckling. “Then there’d be four lost ones instead of three.”

“Lost ones?”

“Akim. Gala. You. They count aunt Asha and my mother since they left Rivain, and we have another Uncle that died in Nevarra, but I count the kids. There are a few lost on the other side of the family, but in Clan Lia, it’s you all. Us, I suppose, since no one really knows what I’m doing.”

“But what _are_ you doing?”

“When I say no one really knows,” Nashan says, and Kimani can see the curves of childhood softening her face when she finally meets her eye, “I mean me, too.”

“Conviction is a strength, you know,” Kimani says, nudging her, “I wasn’t half as convicted as you three years ago. You should be proud.”

Nashan shrugs, pulling away from her and pressing the heels of her hands into her eyes as she shudders a sigh. “But you left your Circle when you heard what happened. That’s no small thing. Conviction.”

Kimani looks into her lap because looking anywhere else would shout her guilt. Her tongue pushes against the back of her teeth to distract from the hundred ways words configure and reconfigure themselves in her head. She looks into her fade-thinned hand and wants to fall into it. Remembers how Corypheus was swallowed into it. Does not change her mind.

“I killed a man,” she says quietly. “ A Templar. He praised the success of the Annulment. He…those of us with the marks of Rivaini, though none of us claimed explicit connection, he crowed at us. Cut us with his words. Raised his cup in toast to my apprentices, told them the Annulment was a purging of corruption that they’d better hope didn’t travel in the blood, the… _dirty-dark_ of skin or the coil of hair. One of my apprentices was _eight_.”

“Spirits.”

“And he continued for days, leaving off the children to intimidate me when he saw where they drew strength. That, and because my relationship with a senior Enchanter was well-known and yet well-protected. He’d never liked that; I think he both wanted me, and was frightened of me, because,” Here she waves at her hair, pulling a coil as she shrugs. “Liked to call me ghost-bitch. Lacked imagination. I want to say I killed him for the sake of my apprentices, but I killed him for his mouth. He wanted a reaction, wanted to see a dirty witch strike out. So I killed him while he slept. And while I slept.”

“But who could know you’d done it?”

“My lover, who did not love what I did.  Told me to run or he’d see me Tranquil. I was going to run anyway, leave my kids like a coward. I was a coward.” The past shimmers mirage-like even as its edges draw blood. Split veins. Kimani has seen herself run dry for it a hundred times already.

“No.” Nashan takes her hand, holding it to her thin chest. Her hear flutters like a bird. “You risked yourself to defend our people.”

“Nothing so epic. I only let my anger get the best of me.”

“You’re _not_ a coward,” Nashan says firmly. “Look at all you’ve done. I think you’re heroic.”

Ah, her heart. Kimani smiles just as warmly. “ _You_ are a hero, little love. On an epic journey to find lost things. You found me.”

“And Gala?”

“We’re looking,” Kimani assures her, smiling. “We will find something. No one just disappears.”

That’s a lie. They do disappear, sometimes. They leave no trace. Like Solas.

But that’s beside the point. Nashan’s smile grows before it wanes, wavers. She hiccups, looking around frantically as she takes deep breaths, trying to fight what’s coming. But she cannot, even with her hand pressed to her mother, and so she shudders a groan and begins to weep.

Kimani holds her close then, uninhibited, her throat going tight but her eyes staying blessedly dry. For this she can only know so much grief, separated by space and time and circumstance.

“We call it _Ina Mahasu_ ,” Nashan says between sobs. “It means _they were smote_.”

 _By the Chantry_ , Kimani thinks, rocking her cousin in her arms. She’s glad that Nashan cannot see the distress on her face as she looks out of the window of the small room and sees Vivienne stride gracefully across the courtyard. Her party leaves in the morning for Val Royeux, where she will ascend the Sunburst Throne with the Inquisition’s support. With Kimani’s support.

Kimani is very used to guilt but this is heavier, colder. There is nothing to maneuver; it is a hard slab of stone, and she cannot move it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Glossary
> 
> Canon Rivaini:  
> Gana - leadership of Rivain's major settlements. 
> 
> Headcanon Rivaini:
> 
> Aabahu- "Sea clan." The name for groups of people (primarily in Antiva and Rivain, though there are Seheron aabahu) who live much of their lives on the ocean. Not to be mistaken for pirates.
> 
> Qabaki Sittu- "Mid-year port." The aabahu make port once a season (4x a year) for up to two weeks.
> 
> Insabat- the Dairsmuid Circle
> 
> Enkidu- A swear.


	2. Part 1: Reverb (Frequencies)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Starting off on all the happy notes, obviously.
> 
> Kimani jinxes herself. Twice.
> 
> Iron Bull is tired.
> 
> Leliana is the Shade God (tm)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part 1 of Stars is called Reverb!   
> Dealing with the aftermath of the Inquisition, really, and getting ready for what that will bring to our lovely characters.   
> This chapter specifically is still called "Frequencies."

Breathe _in_.

Kimani is used to floating on her own, used to the quiet connection between her and the magic sprung from her hands. Used to twirling it over her fingers in solitude, feeling it pull and push and bloom at will. Her will. It is hers, the only thing she thought she’d ever truly own.

She also thought she’d die in the Circle, or finally piss off the wrong Templar and earn a brand on her forehead. Now, look what she’s done. What she _has._

“Give me your hand,” she murmurs, eyes shut and hands cupped together, extended. The high noon sun warms her back as a light, spring breeze rolls over her bare neck. She waits because he always hesitates; even after everything he’s seen her do, the dancing tendrils at her fingertips still give him pause. Maybe its her fault; in the thick of it, they’d lost time for lessons. Even now, Skyhold has none of the simplicity of Haven.

How far she’s come to think that Haven was simple.

“Where are you?” Kimani wiggles her fingers, impatient now for him, impatient for the feeling of her magic blossoming across his skin like bursts of new veins.

“You’re really pretty like this, you know.” Bull’s voice is heavy even as it crests a whisper. “Before I get involved with it. I think you have to change, because there’s another person—you change with Dorian too, though even that’s different— but this here is singular.”

“Flatterer.” Kimani lets her head loll to one side as her fadestuff grows, reaching for the sky. “What do you want to know?”

“If the change is good when the other person is me.”

“Good?” Kimani opens her eyes, and he fills her vision and most of the balcony, sitting in the slumped way that must help his aches. One leg is bent to rest his arm  upon. The other hand rests easily on his thigh, fingers barely brushing her knee. He smells like soap and oil; he adds to her warmth by the sheer bulk of him. “Give me your hand, Big’un.”

Another moment of hesitation, his expression unsure, before he lay one large hand palms-up in hers. Kimani smiles gently, rolling her eyes shut as she pulls for more magic, letting it rise up from her skin like mist. It covers Bull to his elbows, the tendrils mimicking her caresses across the back of his offered hand. She spills, running over the brim of herself, latches on to the bit of give he also offers, even if unknowingly.

“You feel like resistance, but soft. A gentle pushing, to keep me where you don’t mind my venturing. You are more in tune to magic than you might like.”

His grunt reinforces that very fact. “And that’s good?”

Kimani nods. “Anything you give me is good, Bull. I appreciate it very much.”

It is a skill, to be careful. One that she now has the mind to cultivate further: taking care with people, taking care with herself.  The Wars are over and Corypheus is dead. The space before her has been flung wide open. In little moments like this she can embrace the expanse of it, and take time.

Bull surprises her then, by taking her fade-lit hands in his and bringing them to his lips. He kisses her knuckles, nose twitching as her magic tickles him. No words; he splays her fingers and kisses the tips of them before re-arranging her hands as they’d been before he took them, laying them back in her lap.

“Look at you,” He says once he’s done.

“If you like,” she smiles, closing her eyes again. Kimani would love to believe that the far-off wonder of his gaze is all for her, the same way she’d love for the Anchor to be gone from her hand. But she only asks some of her questions, giving him the same space he affords her, and wears her necklace proudly. They have time.

Bull presses his leg against hers and she can hear him shift, most likely to lean better against the balcony railing. She sometimes wonders what exactly he sees when she’s like this.

It is easier, however, to simply float away.

…

The wars are indeed over and Corypheus is indeed dead but he had only been one problem, and those that remain are not so simply swallowed into the Fade; that’d be a _lot_ of people at once. Kimani would have to practice first, before truly considering the option.

And then, the first one up would be Orlais.

“I wasn’t being dramatic when I said Orlesians were horrible people,” She sighs, stretching her hands over Thedas as rendered by cartography, as she stands in the War room. “What else do these letters say, Spymaster?”

“The Orlesian outposts regularly confer with ours, and that they often…suggest that our soldiers fall might more under their supervision.”

“I often suggest Cullen not contribute to espionage with “this is ridiculous,” and yet there he stands, still ready to jump in at a moment’s notice,” Kimani shrugs, raising an eyebrow as Cullen fights that exact urge.

It feels silly to call the War Room such anymore, but it sticks. Kimani thinks maybe it still works, if political wars counted the same way as battles. And didn’t the two go hand in hand, when millennium-old magisters were taken out of the picture? In history lessons, she remembers always thinking that Thedas was a rise and fall of magical monsters and politics, the odds of either weighed equally by the spirits. Or the Maker. Whomever.

“Regardless,” Leliana says with a small smile, “it is more than indicative of Orlais’ plans for the Inquisition now that we have served our purpose.

“It’s been three months,” Kimani says, bewildered. “Just over four months since I left the Wilds. Our purpose is not nearly finished; we have to fix everything we’ve broken. And they want to pull rank _now_?”

“The Empire has a point,” Josephine begins. “Particularly if they feel we have served. The lands are theirs.”

 _“_ They’d be _no one’s_ had we not stepped in. _” I will not be subject to Orlais_ , she thinks, closing her eyes. “We can’t just leave the Dales. Or the Western Approach. Then they’d accuse us of leaving a mess.”

“Such is the way of empires.” Cullen’s pale skin splotches red in irritation. “I won’t have them harassing my men with their forked tongues.”

“Josephine, did we ever agree to anything that would let them subsume control of our outposts?” Kimani asks, bowing her head.

“We did not,” Josephine confirms. “Our presence in the aftermath of victory was kept conveniently vague.”

“Which explains the passive aggression. Alright.” Kimani runs a finger over the Dales, tapping at the inky trees. For a second she feels light, chilled by a faint whisper bubbled up from the depths of her conscience. She shivers, shakes it off. “I would speak with Briala.”

“You’ll have to speak to them _all_ , Inquisitor, lest you incite some sort of favoritism,” Leliana says quietly. “This can be arranged once you arrive in Val Royeaux for the Divine’s ascension.”

This draws the room to silence. Kimani hears the words of Vivienne's letters, including the new Divine’s ridiculous, characteristic calm tones: _I would borrow Josephine from you, if it is amenable, in order to mediate conflict. It also presents the Inquisition with a chance to  openly support the new Divine, which will indeed be useful to you in the future._

Conflict. As though there aren’t founded threats against the mage Divine. As though there aren’t calls for her to have a Templar handler, as though these same dissenters don’t disrespect the very faith they cling to as they inch closer and closer to acts of violence. Kimani forgets her place very rarely, but this? The sharp, metallic bite of _The Chantry_ sours her tongue. Again.

But she is part of it, even as a dissenting mage. Especially as the Inquisitor.

“Josephine is set to leave in the morning,” Kimani says aloud, crossing her arms, “And I’ll follow in a fortnight. This should give you at least as much time yourself in Val Royeaux, Josie.”

“More than enough time,” the ambassador smiles. “I’ll secure a meeting between yourself and the Crown as well. It will all come together.”

“They’d better hope it does. They only _think_ they know Vivienne.”

At this, everyone laughs, sinking into more comfortable stances as they work their way through more routine business among the outposts. By the end, Kimani sips tea on her knees, peering closely at the Hinterlands as Cullen updates on Venatori sightings on the Storm Coast.

Kimani is thankful it isn’t pertinent to update on her acute longing to have something ridiculous happen in the Hinterlands so that she may go there. She’d fight a hundred Venatori if it meant she could roam the hills around Dusklight camp or spend a sunny day at Lake Calenhad.

But she is no longer the brightest thing in Thedas; there aren’t a hundred Venatori to fight because she’s done her duty. All that remains are a few neglected rifts, contained and weakening by the day. The fire fueling her flickers low.

This is a good thing. This is supposed to be a good thing.

_Elgara vallas, da'len, melava somniar…_

Kimani averts her eyes, fighting the urge to frown as she hears the unfamiliar song in her ears. Her heart picks up speed, frantic as she easily translates the Elvhen into Trade in her head.

_Mala taren aravas…_

The Arbor Wilds are still the most beautiful place she’s ever been; she has flat, tasteless dreams of the Wilds and always reaches for her magic, to peel away the layers, for her exploration. But they are never that kind of dream, not with the religious way she takes _nesomni_. In these dreams she sings Elven songs as she did in the aftermath of the Well. Singing, repeating what the waters whispered to her, and understanding.

_…ara ma'desen melar._

Only when she’s sure her face shows only minute strain does she look up at her advisers, who’ve turned to each other to argue quietly over whose skill would be the better to expel the final flickers of the Venatori threat completely. They know to include Kimani would be to have her squash the argument by offering herself as the proper game-piece. And she doesn’t have the time. Not now, even if she wants to.

“Let Leliana put the fear of shadows into them,” she says as she rises, tossing back the rest of her lukewarm tea. “And if they aren’t afraid of the dark, they’ll be afraid of…whatever Josephine does. Ruins bloodlines. Scary things. Even Venatori care about status. Sorry, Cullen,” she adds when he puffs indignantly, “Ferelden is already wary of our soldiers. I need them calm, at least for the moment. If there’s nothing else…we’re done for now.”

Kimani has to walk off war meetings because that room is still too much of a reminder of all they’ve persevered; it has been little more than a season since she’d defeated Corypheus. The small world of Skyhold rushes around her constantly, and she sees many faces in between breaths.

Spring is warm on her face, the breeze rolling over her with the promise of green valleys and flowers in the hills. There are _children_ in Skyhold and daily, she sees new, unfamiliar staves of mages passing through. Many were on their way to Val Royeaux now, to see the Divine when she presented herself. There are even some old faces from her Circle, though none yet of the ones she truly wishes to see.

Life is odd that way.  Kimani leans against a wall, the stone cool through her blouse as she watches the thin trickle of people moving through Skyhold.

 _Elgara vallas, da’len._ The song repeats, returning to a head already full to the brim. It filters into the forefront of her thoughts all the same.

“The sun sets, little one,” she sings quietly. She doesn’t know the tune, shouldn’t know elvhen, so she makes one up. “It’s time to dream. Your mind journeys, but I will hold you here. Huh,” she scoffs, folding her arms tightly against her. “Fitting.”

Often, and especially after Adamant, Solas would call Kimani “young one” when he was surprised, or concerned, or simply in the mornings that she’d sleep in the rotunda on one of his couches. His voice was always soft, luring his listener into a trance so they would not truly hear the things he said.

Spirits, the things he’d said. The casual hate and cold indifference and uneven stories. But he’d flick his hand for magic and always became the most familiar thing to her in Haven and Skyhold. His had been the first face she’d seen after collapsing the first time she’d stabilized the Breach. He was the only reason she’d lived after the Conclave, keeping watch over her split hand and tending to her wounds.

And he’d saved her from the Nightmare more than once.

 _I don’t miss him_ , Kimani thinks, watching now as the portcullis lowers behind a final, small band of travelers. _But he was damn useful to have around._

Kimani has no context for the Well of Sorrows now that both Morrigan and Solas are gone. She doesn’t know if she should be worried that a quiet Well has started singing after a season of silence.

“Lucky bastards,” she mutters, rubbing her chin as she pushes off of the wall. “They can ride the wind at will and leave off with little consequence.”

At least the Anchor has been calm, reduced to an almost soothing glow with only the occasional crackle like fire popped on wood. She tries to keep it relevant in her mind, tries to look at it and touch it so her hair stands on end, if only to keep it alien to her body. More than anything, she is afraid of what it might mean if she becomes so used to it, she forgets that it is unnatural.

 And unwanted.

Kimani pulls off leather gloves to look at the Anchor, wiggling her fingers to play in its green light.

“Don’t think I’m convinced you’re safe,” Kimani whispers to it. “I’m only glad for the break.”

As if to prove otherwise, the Anchor flares flashing light on beat with her pulse, and it does it so brightly that she sees spots in her vision for minutes after. There is a dull, familiar ache throbbing in the center of her palm for longer still. _Spirits._

Perhaps, then, _all_ of her breaks are over.

Kimani simply looks into her palm a moment longer and nods, slipping back into her glove and jamming her hands deep into her coat pockets as she turns for her quarters.

…

Breathe out.

Bull stands with his great arms crossed, feet apart and captain’s glare etched into his face as he barks maneuvers to his men. Most of the southern seasons don’t bother him too much, but he likes spring. It’s nice. The wind smells good, the air is this really great mix of cool and warm. Everyone starts wearing less and he can read bodies a whole leap better. Clears his head, being able to see clearly.

This too; The Chargers are damned good, damned exceptional if he was ruffling his own feathers, and still he likes to keep them humble. He also just likes to be loud. It makes him feel even _bigger_.

Inquisition soldiers hang around, watching with such practiced bored expressions that Bull really does want to go up to each of them and shake their hand for the effort, but many of them still pale at the sight of him. A lot of them flush, but many of them pale. He’s been over it for so long that it’s no longer amusing. It used to be, at least, funny.

But Bull is tired. There is an eternal crick in his neck and he looks like a massive bird the way his one arm curls into a wing so he can grip the offending spot, digging his thumb between the thick tendons of his neck. Folks just think he’s flexing. Well, he’s not _not_ flexing, but he’d like it if the crick would go away. And he knows this is in his head; there’s no stutter in his swing, the maul flying as forcefully as ever it has through the air. He could crush his own neck and still not get to the ache.  But he doesn’t really know what else to do, so it’d have to suffice.

_You could talk about it._

So usually, he and his conscience are on the same level. None of this call and response. He always has his bearings, always very firmly on a path lain out for him. This is just plain irritating.

“Iron Bull.”

No one remembers the “The,” save for Cole and Kimani during introductions, and now even this irritates him. He turns to Leliana.

Bull is frighteningly certain that he’s never heard the Nightingale’s voice rise above the smooth calm of her conversational tones. She is…she’s something, something he’s more than a little afraid of figuring out. She was not like Kimani; Kimani would kick his ass, only to leave him well enough to answer her angry questions. Leliana would kill him, flat out. That she hadn’t cast him out of Skyhold by now was by the grace of both the Inquisitor and the choices he’d made.

Still; it is seasons past the infiltrations of Gatt and the Ben-Hassrath pseudo-assassins, and the Nightingale has not let it go. He can see it in her eyes, sharpening the light angles of her face, as she comes to stand by his side. He’s also very certain he’s never seen her in anything but full armor.

“Spymaster,” Bull nods reverently. “I’m pretty sure I haven’t done anything to warrant a visit from you.”

“On the contrary, you’ve captured the Inquisitor’s affections. I’d caution you to expect me, from time to time.” There is amusement dancing in the Orlesian lilt of her birdsong voice. On anyone else, it’d be hot. As it is, Bull’s cut cold.

“Noted.”

“As for why I am here today.” Not a fold in her charcoal cloak is rustled as she produces a letter from beneath it, holding it out to him in a gauntlet-clad hand. “You are aware of the Inquisitor’s search for a family member, _non_?”

“You mean to inform me even if I wasn’t—I need you _knees to fucking chest_ , Lieutenant!” Bull bellows suddenly over Leliana’s head at Krem, who’s slacking in the sparring ring against a woman that’d get him good if he kept it up. She’s a proper soldier and riled up by her comrades, while Krem wants to fucking play.

It wouldn’t be like Bull not to shoot a glance at the Spymaster to see if she’d jumped, and it wouldn’t be like her to give him the satisfaction. She simply waits for his reply.

“I know Kimani’s searching for another cousin of hers, yeah. What you've just given me is information that you want me to deliver. Instead of you. Because…?”

“Because the child is frightened of me, and I have gleaned what I need from this. It is a family matter, no? You are currently part of her family. Afterwards, she will come to me.”

“You seem sure about that.”

Leliana smiles. “I am. We began learning her before she deemed you fit for decent conversation, do remember. And so,” her gaze drops to his hand as it takes the missive, “I trust in the love she seems to bear you, that you are a worthy messenger. Now, I won’t distract you from your duties any longer.”

The Spymaster leaves without any more jibes at his person: back to her roost in the rafters, not doubt. Bull opens the missive and realizes it is half a page of neat Harding handwriting. Lace Harding was another one; sweeter, but could cut just as sharp.

The Inquisition is run by frightening women. And Cullen.

Bull laughs to himself as he scans the missive, which only has him laughing harder.

“What the fuck.” He rubs at his stubble, amused. “ _Vashedan._ ”

There is a trend among the Lias. Kimani is…well, and Nashan is carving her place among the ranks if her lessons with Dorian were any indication. Bull is definitely sensing a trend, and he doesn’t know what to do with it.

So he digs into the phantom crick in his neck because that’s all he really can do. Because feeling helpless seems to be the trend with him these days.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kimani translate the Elvhen aloud for us, but here's the lines from the lullaby "Mir Da'len Somniar" :
> 
> "Elgara vallas, da'len  
> Melava somniar  
> Mala taren aravas  
> Ara ma'desen melar
> 
> Sun sets, little one,  
> Time to dream  
> Your mind journeys,  
> But I will hold you here." 
> 
> This lullaby is fitting and we'll be seeing it again. -zips mouth shut-


	3. Another Magic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dorian gets to pit his pupil against her cousin. (not shown: his immense glee)  
> Kimani gets to talk down an angry young mage.  
> Flashbacks. Fucking. Fear of falling.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a re-release, but changed enough to warrant a second read. I re-structured chapter three, because I initially didn't show Nashan's reaction to the letter and I thought that it was more important to show right now instead of kimanibull deliberation. Sorry for the confusion, we're back on track.

Kimani doesn’t make it to her room; the spirits had seemingly decreed that her path be blocked by the most convincing creature in the Keep. But then, that would suggest that the spirits took interest in one singular mage with the Fade beneath her skin, and everyone knew that was not so. She had never been the Herald of Andraste or anyone else, and the damned dead Divine herself had jogged her memory.

This, then, was simply bad luck.

“I want to sleep,” she complains futilely when Dorian catches her by the hand, dragging her to wherever he’d stashed Nashan away to both train and study her. Kimani has seen in him the want for a pupil and while Nashan is in awe of him, she can separate herself from it long enough to call him “teacher.” Had Kimani assumed her old role, the girl would have to sift through too many names to be truly comfortable.

That, and Kiamani would much rather Nashan latch on to Necromancy than whatever twist of Rift magic spilled from her own pores.

Dorian clicks his tongue. “You can nap all you like afterward, precious. Now, you must show the little precious how you spin your oft-neglected stave.”

“...What have you been telling her?”

“That her cousin is an artist when she graces the battlefield with staff in hand instead of leaving it useless on her back.”

“Hand casting lends a better bend to the spells.”

“You want me to teach the 18-year-old to battle with her hands? Or with the proper conduit that not only drains the mage significantly less, but kills the opponent significantly _more_?”

“So there are _levels_ of being dead, now.” Kimani raises a snowy eyebrow to the back of Dorian’s head as he leads her.

 Dorian’s laugh is sharp, more bark than anything. “You have _clearly_ forgotten who you’re speaking to, so I’ll ignore that for your sake. Moreover, _you_ simply like the feeling of throwing things at people, _better bend to the spells_ my arse.” His grin laces his words like a twinkling thread, and Kimani scoffs.

Dorian leads her out of the fortress and down to the clearing where they’d once amused Nashan, Cassandra, and Sera with a show, rendering a tree into a pile of ash. There; there is the dent where the tree had once stood. In the center of the clearing, Nashan stands with her back to them, turning her stave over her hands, its windmill slow and jolting, and punctuated by her steady, repetitive murmur.

“Complete the circle and…strike,” she intones, jamming the butt of her stave into the softened ground as she says ‘strike.’ “Lift, stave always goes over, and…one handed,” Nashan holds her left hand out to her side and bends into the movement of her right arm, rolling the stave over her knuckles and back into the security of her palm three times before she realizes she’s being watched.

Kimani smiles appraisingly, nodding her approval when Nashan shrugs her shoulders. “Good. Fancy. Now, how about trying to do that when three people….or, things….are trying to dodge your magic long enough to rip you apart? Your feet are too light,” She critiques, pulling her staff from its place on her back. It’s topped by a sharply crafted  moon of dragonbone, an iridescent Spirit rune lodged in the center, its knife-end removed. Simple and sturdy; the Anchor pulses as she tosses the staff from left to right grip, but she focuses on Nashan.

“Too light?” The girl asks, shifting her weight between legs, almost bouncing. Kimani nods.

“To start, you should be a little more grounded. You can mimic the ballet later.” She moves, turning her stave over her hands slowly, murmuring a harmless spell that spits a shot of energy over Nashan’s head. The magic falls over her, and Nashan shivers before smiling.

“It’s warm.”

“Pay attention,” Kimani says as she moves around her. Mages were often kept apart from the thick of battle, like archers, but they didn’t have to be. There was a pleasure to being so close; Kimani taps the deactivated edge of her staff on Nashan as it turns in her hands, marking the places where magic would theoretically erupt and wound. “I hope you won’t ever have to be so close in battle, or be in battle at all, but that’s silly. And if push comes to shove, you grab the fucker by the throat and _burn_.”

“Inquisitor,” Dorian calls his disapproval with a stern look. “I’d prefer my student _whack_ the opponent to death with her _staff_. Less grime on her hands, you see.”

“So she’d never get so close, eh?” Kimani urges Nashan to move, until younger woman’s staff mimics hers as it twirls through the air, stuttering as she readjusts her grip.

As the distance between them grows, Kimani positions herself aside Nashan, her soft “Okay?” whenever she changes pace or pattern replied to with a determined “Okay _damiq_.”

“Okay _damiq_ ,” Kimani grins. The Rivaini is nice on her tongue. “Dorian?”

“Well, she looks better already.”

“Then you can get her swinging arm in shape. Nashan, one day I’ll tell you how I harpooned a demon with my stave.”

“What?!”

“But not now,” Kimani laughs, replacing her staff and flexing her gloved hands. “Now, _I_ _’_ _m_ the thing that ser Pavus wants you to whack to death with the staff.” She looks over to Dorian, who nods.

The Anchor suddenly throbs, giving its own consent, and Kimani nicks the tip of her tongue in shock at the sharp, though fleeting, pain.

That the Anchor, and the Well, have risen from their slumber sets her on familiar edge, and she claws for purchase against common sense so she doesn’t fall into the abyss of memory; everything is frightening in retrospect. Everything is so much _more_.

 _Corypheus is dead,_ She thinks as she watches Dorian lead her cousin into a rhythmic side-step. _What is left is just another magic. One that I need to learn._

Nashan swallows her excitement and starts circling as Kimani loosens her sash and slips off her gloves. The Anchor glows a notch too brightly, and she doesn’t miss Dorian’s quick, pointed glare. But Kimani playfully waves her marked hand at him, then at Nashan.

Just another magic.

“Follow the birdy, little love,” Kimani says, and lunges smoothly forward.

…

After seeing the Anchor, Dorian is filled to the brim with questions but Bull beats him to her as she lay out on the ground, panting and shivering in the cool breeze. Exertion has always been her favored medicine; spent on the ground, half-dizzied by her own spinning to dodge Nashan’s frantic attacks, muscles jumping at being put to work after so long sleep, Kimani feels like floating into the sky. She watches the trees shake in the wind, spilling twigs and pollen into the air, and breathes deep.

Nashan’s aggravated “Oy!”, is what lets her know Bull’s found them; not long after, she hears the familiar thump of his steps.

“Now don’t tell me the Inquisitor let your scrawny ass beat her, Younger?” Bull says amiably.

“It was practice,” Nashan mutters.

“Indeed! And I suppose we should get going before you start marking,” comes Dorian’s wry tones; Kimani can imagine him waving Nashan furiously along and the girl staring between her and Bull a moment too long before obeying.

“The kid should stay, but you can go. Don’t worry; she’ll be filling you in later, I’m sure. But they need to hear it first.”

And then the sun’s red shine on her eyelids is replaced with a singular darkness; Kimani opens her eyes, and smiles up, up, up at Bull.

“You’ve brought me bad news,” she says, raising her hands so he can pull her to her feet. It’s about Galani, it has to be about Galani; there’s nothing else “the kid” would need to stay for. Once she’s on her feet, Kimani waves Nashan to her side. In fleeting moments Nashan is truly nothing but a kid, soft-featured and wide-eyed, her wonder like a song she sings as she prods at the vast unknown. But too soon her voice hardens, her face hardens; the mask she’s carefully carved turns her into a person Kimani can believe would have marched back to Dairsmuid and taken on the Knight Commander himself, not to mention travel unknown lands in search of a ghost.

Bull shrugs, but his expression is soft as he looks down at her. He pulls the letter from his pocket and presses it into her waiting hand. “I’ve brought news via Leliana, so it’s certain.”

It’s Harding’s handwriting, and the letter is short: 

 _…_ _The mage described was last seen in Jader. Common consensus makes him seem quiet and unwilling to make trouble, but our scouts found others who spoke of the mage_ _’_ _s arcane pursuits, and more than one mentioned blood magic, along with more obscure illegal magics_ _…_

Blood magic. Maleficarum. Kimani’s eyebrows raise and her lips press together, and she tries to suppress a laugh that would be unappreciated.

 _Well_ , she thinks, _At least he_ _’_ _s interesting._ Kimani cannot judge. With what she’s done? She will not judge. Wordlessly, she hands the letter to Nashan.

“Did you know, little love?” Kimani asks after a moment, though she meets Bull’s stoic gaze. What she wants to ask is how long since Leliana gave him the letter, what ran through his mind, what he’s thinking right now. Instead, she flicks his dragon’s tooth necklace before turning to her cousin.

Yes, Nashan knew.

“I figured if it came up, it came up. And that maybe, you’d understand.” Nashan meets Kimani’s sympathetic gaze head-on, thin shoulders pushed back, and Kimani sees pride older than the girl before her mold the shape of her stance. Perhaps, this is what it was to be a Lia. This was how it looked.

“They taught blood magic in Dairsmuid?”

“Of course not. It gets taught at home. The _laraak_ use it to heal, mostly. A lot for the blood sicknesses that happen in rainy season. I’ve heard it tell they used it in battle during the Exalted Marches, but it gets passed down for medicine in the clans. Gala was one; Clan Lia has three, at all times.”

Bull grunts. Kimani turns to him as he speaks.

“I wonder why anyone in Jader needed to know he’s a blood mage, then.”

It doesn’t take much for Nashan to bristle, even less if the speaker is Bull. “Why don’t you make your suggestion a bit clearer, _Enki_ -”

“No,” Kimani raises her voice. “No, we won’t be doing that. Either of you.” She notices Bull shifts towards her Anchor, which still glows too bright. To put her gloves on now would admit a problem so she does nothing,  uncomfortable. “ Alright, Nashan. Do you know about the other obscure, illegal magics?”

The girl shrugs, and what is mean to be nonchalant only reveals the intensity of her tension. “No. I haven’t seen him in three years.”

“Was he a harrowed mage?”

“Yes, he was a _harrowed mage_. He was part of a Circle, right?” Nashan snaps. The head of her staff crackles once, and Bull makes no move to hide the way he shifts over and out of Kimani’s space and into full view.

“Nashan,” Kimani says gently, turning fully to her cousin. “His Circle _let him go home_. They let you visit. And the women still became Seers, no? So I’m asking for clarifi-calm the _fuck_ down,” Kimani hisses when the staff sparks again, a sharp, hungry flame flickering for half a breath before fizzling out.

Nashan glowers; her pulling at the Fade is subtle which is very good, she’s been taught well.  Kimani takes a step nearer, and pulls at the Fade harder, a warning: _We can do this if you want to._

 _But I really don_ ' _t want to._

How many times, when children still called her “enchanter” had she calmed spooked, young apprentices? How many weak mageling burns had she taken across her skin before she subdued them? How many times? Nashan has none of the readable lines of a Circle apprentice. Her fear and her anger are different animals; the fire that she’d attack Kimani with would do more than worry skin.

“Calm yourself, girl. You let all those feelings manifest, and then I’ll have to bring you down a notch.”

“You think so?”

At this Kimani does laugh,  folding her arms. “I didn’t stop Corypheus to get my ass beaten by my kid cousin so yes, I think so. Please, dear.”

When she lowers herself to the ground, sinking onto her haunches, she can see the knots that hold Nashan rigid loosen. This is the same thing Bull does, when people feel threatened by him: make yourself smaller. Even if it’s a ruse. But also, there is humility when the shift is a genuine offering without stipulating or time: to give it without thought of taking it back again.

“I’m sorry,” Nashan says finally, clenching her jaw against the inevitable return of the child.

“It’s alright. Just…next time you think I’d spook at the first sounds of _maleficar_ , you remember who you’re talking to.” Kimani smiles broadly, rising only when Nashan smiles back. The kid rubs her shoulder sheepishly, the mahogany of her skin hiding the shade of her blush but not the way it slumps her shoulders or has one booted foot rub over the other.

“It’s still so strange to be here, sometimes. I feel like I’m safe, and then that I’m not.”

“Maybe because you remember who you’re talking to,” Kimani sighs. “Because It’s harder to forget I’m Inquisitor. And that still means something, right?”

“Right. Seekers and Templars and…Ben-Hassrath…” Nashan hazards a glance at Bull, whom Kimani cannot see. She’s eternally grateful that he doesn’t correct her.

“Yes. That’s why I thought Dorian would be good for you. He’s Tevinter through and through, he’s never postured as anything else.”

“I...think I’ll go find him.” There is nothing but child, now, and Kimani wonders when last she could cower into herself, be ushered among adults who, as much as their ilk could, doted on her.

Kimani smiles reassuringly as she waves the girl back towards Skyhold; they were both in need of distance, and a rest. “Go. We can talk about Galani later. And keep the missive. I know that’s always calmed me down, helped me to trust, when I had the offending paper in my hand.”

Nashan nods, tucking the letter into her pocket, and without another word she shuffles away, pulling her hood over her head as she goes.

Time. As with most things, they would take time. 

Bull, gone to sit down once it was clear no one would be fighting, gives Kimani a very pointed, very patient, stare.

“Go ahead. Say what you need to say,” she shrugs. Bull chuckles.

“Now’s not the right time to add to whatever you’re struggling with,” he replies. “Later.”

Bull’s penchant—talent, urge, reflex—for laying foundation, for forming and waiting and telling people what they need and don’t need has only rarely extended to her. Or, he’s curbed it because he already knows how she’ll respond, the thought of which only serves to irk her more. As it is now, she’s too damn tired.

Though she’s never too tired to snap back, even if in a breathy whisper: “ _Shok ebasit hissra_.”

“Right. But from what I remember, you still sometimes like to struggle.” Bull slings his voice low, and Kimani recognizes the heat in her belly for what it is; a reflex he’s molded into her over the last few months. A way to soften her, to ease her, and she’s glad for the warmth it spreads through her body.

“So you have nothing to say about my blood-mage cousin.”

“Not right now, no. _You_ haven’t even said anything about your blood-mage cousin. More willing to suggest yourself as maleficar than him.”

“I thought you weren’t adding to it.”

“That’s just an observation.” He keeps his gaze steady on hers as she walks over to him, smoothing her hands over his shoulders before tracing the angles of his face with the unmarked hand. She knows he likes this, and it’s something of her own that calms her. “I can feel every bit of tension you think you’ve released, _kadan_.”

Bull mostly calls her by that moniker, now that he’s given it. But there are ways that he says it; she can make herself immune but now, with the Anchor pulsing and the Well a steady trickle of incoherent whispers and her cousin reminding her how she really is a piece of the Chantry mosaic, she wants to give in to the suggestive way he regards her. Wants him to have his way, since she can’t seem to have hers.

“Every bit of tension, huh?” She  leans against him. If she’s honest she could lay just so, leaning into his settled frame, until the sun set. When she closes her eyes and holds him tight, he is nothing but a giant, beating heart.

“Every bit.”

“You think you can unravel ‘em for me?”

Bull chuckles. He likes to win.“I _definitely_ think I can unravel ‘em for you.”

…

Bull honestly thinks that Kimani and Nashan could be twins. Almost. The two women have the same mouth, same nose, but different eyes; Nashan’s are large and rounded and full of everything, and he can read her like a book. Lot of fear, there, but after what she’s known, Bull’s not surprised. She and Kimani were going to be great together once they worked through the issues they shared. He can see it, clear as day, as if it’s already come to pass. But, it was going to take time and patience that neither of them came by easily. Bull thinks he can be useful there. Or maybe he’d get singed.

Once he gets Kimani to his quarters he opens her up and she lets him, allows him to read, lets him see what she needs, for all that she hates to hear him say it.

He is all too eager to give, because it has her face-down and entirely in his grasp as he takes what she needs him to take. Her hands grasp soft sheets. His find anchor on one soft hip, in soft hair pulled taut. They both shimmer in sweat, trembling beneath it, but he is sure.  He has to be sure, as much for her as for himself. His control...that's all he's got tight now to hold him together.

She bends like a reed for him, snowy lashes cresting flushed cheeks, full mouth fallen open. Rare that she allows this. Her love has always been in the pushing back, but now she molds to his hands, quiet save for heated sighs of pleasure, whispers of “please.” And it feels so damned _good_ , this little submission: better, even, than the warm, slick slide of her over him, or the quaking of her flesh with his thrusts.

“Are you with me?” He whispers into her ear once she shudders her climax around him. “ _Kadan_.”

“I’m here,” she assures him, curling her nails into his thigh for the sharp, bright bite of pain he likes. So he takes for himself until she’s screaming, clutching, spent, held in such a graceful, arching pose until Bull can gather his senses again. Until he can find the common sense to remove himself from her.

And she _looks_ content afterward; she can barely move without him nudging her along, rising to his touch and little else as she breathes deeply, copper skin burnished in a full-body flush. His room is rose-toned with sunset through the hole in his roof that he’s turned into a skylight; the sharp orange of firelight cutting muted reds like crackling whips, dancing over his walls like the myriad of secrets that hold between them.

The telling is slow-going. They're trying. Sometimes, the telling is in spite of both of them.

Once they've settled, Bull decides he wants her weight, situating her on top of him and she squirms until they’re both as comfortable as they’re going to get. Her left hand curls against his cheek, twitching involuntarily as she snores. The right side of his face is illuminated in green; the ceiling above them cast in the Anchor's sickly pallor.

Would that Bull could reach in and pull the Anchor clean out, tear the blighted thing to bits. Would that Kimani would fucking tell him what was going on, because he knows.

But she has never been one coerced into anything she wasn’t willing to give: not anything she could control, anyway. Bull’s never been dumb to the easy way he’s relented to her, from the very beginning. Sure, he can say it was his job to make the Inquisitor comfortable, to keep her off the edge she’d honed for him. But dammit if he didn’t also say how nice it was to simply hold up his hands in surrender to a woman who heard the name "Boss" and _demanded_ that respect.

Kimani wakes once in the night, huffing, squirming on top of him until she’s got his necklace in her hand and her lips on his chin, whispering that she loves him. She had been in need of someone to love, he thinks. Someone she knew was hers. There’s something else in her eyes when she looks at him, though. Something far away and secret; _I love you_ becomes synonymous with something he doesn’t know. Beyond care, and sex, and gentleness. Beyond the physical ache in his chest when she smiles at him. _I love you._

Bull has said the same, has given her the things that, for him, confirm that fact and yet, he still doesn’t think he knows what he’s talking about.

He thinks about the feelings he’s known, compares their light to that of the too-bright Anchor. He thinks of Seheron, of the way its fog-warriors had snuffed out lights just as bright, and brighter.

Bull wraps his arms tighter around his _kadan_. They were going to have to talk faster.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't think Kimani is maleficar for simply having somniari abilities, but I think she'd be classified as one for how she uses/has used them. Blood magic is a bit more extreme because as far as I can tell, you aren't born a blood mage. 
> 
> Glossary (headcanon Rivaini):  
> Laraak- Seer, lit. "To see (the glow), in reference to the Fade.


	4. Duty

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dreams and politics and isms and nightmares and...murder promises.  
> And off to Orlais!

_Wake up, Kimani._

She’s dreaming of Adamant, and it is painfully dull; The Fade reaches for her and is blocked by some invisible barrier. The remembered and warped unreal of the raw Fade contorts around her as she takes old steps, watching her comrades act out their parts around her. She sees Cole’s gut-wrenching fear, rivaled by none as knowledge drags his thin, youthful face into old age. She sees his hand clutch hers, but with _nesomni_ sitting heavy in her belly, she cannot feel his bony grip. She sees pairs of yellow eyes watching them in the mist, hears the discomfort on Cassandra’s body (which is a symptom, to hear things one should not hear, in blocked dreams) as well as Solas’ glee.

The twinge of longing she feels when she sees Solas did not happen at Adamant, but it twists with a very real pain in her chest now.

Kimani follows the dream to its zenith, sees the conjured severed head of her mother rise from her dead, childhood friend’s shoulders. Hears her own scream, how it rips through the air and wrenches when the Fade bursts from her skin in a forceful wave. It _is_ magnificent, what happens to her; she understands Solas’ awe, as well as the strange way she is regarded immediately after.

_Wake **up** , spectator._

The voice is almost teasing, and Kimani sees Solas’ face over her as she continues the dream; now he soothes her back into the world. _You cannot go away again,_ he says, comforting her through the muscle spasms. Kimani remembers this tenderness too well. _It will be alright, da_ _’len._

Suddenly the dream freezes, slowing with the spread of Kimani’s frown.

“That’s not what you said,” Kimani whispers, peering up into Solas’ still, calm face.  His hands still hold her as they had at Adamant, only now so stiff that she can’t free herself. Still: she searches for the strings of this dream, fighting against the frantic bubble expanding within her. “That is _not_ what you said.”

Solas blinks, his smile slow and creeping. Every nerve in Kimani’s body lights like a thousand torches.

 **_Very good_ ** _, girl._

She wakes all at once, face mashed into Bull’s ribs.

Her quarters are dark save for the waning orange embers in her hearth; she revives the fires as she shivers, pulling her blankets around her. Bull’s arm is hooked around her waist, hand curled around her thigh; he twitches as she moves, pulling her against him as he gives a sleepy sigh.

She aches horribly; her head pounds, and she tries to recall her dream.

There is nothing there, not even a sliver of color to latch on to. There is only the feeling that she'd been called. Someone had been calling her.

“No,” Kimani whispers, glancing up at Bull when he snorts. “No. I was…I was _just_ there.”

Fighting. Screaming? Perhaps she'd been with people...

Her dreams, thin as they are without the Fade open to her, are still enough that they linger colorful in her mind long after waking; this forgetfulness leaves her feeling empty and fatigued. Her arms ache as she pushes herself into a sitting position, trying hard not to jostle her sleeping lover. She wipes at her face and finds no tears, no salty sting that would denote a nightmare. Just ache wherever she moves, as though she’d sparred before sleeping, and she hadn’t.

The Anchor is quiet. Kimani’s body is buzzing.

“I’m awake,” she tries timidly, her voice thin. Something had been trying to wake her, she thinks. In her head she calls the Well: _I am awake._

 _We do not call you, Good Enough,_  comes its reply, loud and clear before receding into its soft background hum to the tune she’d made for the lullaby.

 _Do you know who does?_ She does not know if the Well has that knowledge, or what knowledge it gains from living within her. Does it know her, now that they are one and the same? Does it remember things she’s forgotten, or see into her dreams?

But the Well answers nothing, only sings. _Elgara vallas, da'len_ _…_

Kimani curls against Bull’s side, slides her hand across his chest. Then she sighs and slips out of bed. Dressing quickly, kissing Bull lightly on the lips.

“At least one of us is sleeping.”

But she’s not paying attention really, not to him. She’s draping a scarf over her shoulders and heading out of her rooms for the library and does not see the way Bull’s hand grips the sheets. She won’t see how he’s cut crescent-moons into his palm.

And he won’t tell her, because he’s not supposed to be having nightmares. Not even this first, short one that has his eyes open not long after the door to Kimani’s quarters creaks softly shut.

…

Josephine is sent off quietly, flanked by one of Leliana’s and Dalish, with Krem bringing up the back. Josie is resplendent, her traveling cloak a rich, golden brown, hood settled prettily over bunned hair. Her Inquisition crest sits atop her clothing, and it glitters the way her eyes do as she waves a final farewell. The journey will be easygoing on the Imperial highway, and even if anyone wants to try their luck, they’d not make it past spontaneous combustion or the hellion Krem becomes in battle. Josephine will reach Val Royeux in two weeks. Kimani has the same amount of time to prepare herself for the same journey along with Cassandra and Blackwall, both of whom will not return.

 The Divine’s ascension will soon make her inner circle much smaller, but it is time to move on, move up.

 Cassandra catches Kimani’s eye when she looks up and smiles softly. A messenger appears at the Seeker’s side, though, his hand clenched around a sealed missive, his face perfectly cordial as Kimani watches his free-hand fidget. When Cassandra looks back at her, apologetic, Kimani shakes her head, holding a hand over her heart. Duty, after all, is what brought them all here, and duty is what would take them away again. She knows that even Dorian will leave one day, and then she and Sera would warm their occasional corner in Herald’s Rest, giggling into their tankards as the Chargers insisted on singing horribly. And they’d be all that was left.

The feeling is fleeting, but cold, too cold a breeze for spring; _I only really have what the Anchor has given me._

For all of her mourning, Kimani plans to make use of it, as well as the people she has until they’re gone.

She walks into a crowd watching early-morning templar trainings. A few of the captains spar as Cullen watches on, grim stare nestled in his mantle like an angry bird. There is nothing to fight this spring, but the soldiers must stay sharp, so help the Commander; An army is an army, even in peacetime, he’d told her, all too cognizant of her grimaces. And yet, Kimani has stood with him on more than one occasion to watch how the soldiers, her soldiers, trained.

“You might smile a little, Commander,” She says in way of greeting as she sidles up to Cullen. “I recognize the brunette. He’s been with us since at least Adamant. Surely a veteran gets a smile?”

“No smiles,” Cullen says wryly. “Only curt grimness. Must maintain appropriate level of fear and respect.” He can hardly maintain his own joke; the scarred edge of his mouth twitches as he fights not to meet her grin.

“You wouldn’t have to do all that if you were more like your Inquisitor.” She puffs her chest.

This breaks him, and his smile is slow, sly. “If only I was born with the ability to blow things up.”

They leave it there, quieting to watch the captains slow. Sweat slicks them like melting icicles until they’re laughing more than anything else, clapping each other on the back as the onlooking soldiers cheer and jest in the span of breath it takes for Cullen to bark them down, throwing another pair into the ring. They see the Inquisitor at his side and straighten up beneath her amused gaze.

She considers asking Cullen to let her in to the ring, but chooses instead to enjoy the soldier beating on each other. She’s still sore from working with Nashan and Dorian, after all.

“So,” Kimani muses once the training is over and as she accompanies Cullen to his office, “How quickly do you think I could make it down into the Hinterlands and back before I need to leave for Orlais?”

It is silly; she knows there is no time, not for the excursion she wants, and asks solely to watch Cullen’s eyes widen as they do now.

“You’re asking _me_?” He sputters, rubbing the back of his neck. “Maker, Inquisitor, I’m of half a mind to let you go if it’s that bad.”

“I just miss the hills.” Kimani shrugs innocently, snorting when Cullen rolls his eyes.

“Yes, and I miss the lake. And yet here we both stand, neither of us nearer to our dreams. Now, unless you’re offering to help with my reports…”

“Never, you’re on your own.” Kimani pulls a face, raising her hands as she backs away. This is how they maintain their acquaintanceship; never moving too near, deflecting with rough playfulness. Kimani can manage this, wants to manage it, because she has truly grown fond of her Commander.

Cullen chuckles, shaking his head. “Until later, Inquisitor.”

“Until later, Commander.” She waves goodbye, descending from the ramparts with a smile on her face and a warming sun at her back. Josephine has left on a good day. Kimani can only hope that the journey is always so agreeable.

She walks slowly so as to enjoy the fine weather before she returns to the library.

…

_Inquisitor,_

_Greetings from Orlais. I will be brief and direct; the atmosphere you will meet on your arrival to Val Royeaux is one of great tensions boiling just beneath the surface. Many come from across the Empire as well as diplomats from Nevarra, the Free Marches, and Antiva to witness the new Divine_ _’s ascension. All come with stories of the former Enchantress Vivienne’s history since the revolt of the White Spire, all the way to her involvement with the Inquisition. I believe that much vitriol stems from her being mage, as well as her bloodline, but also from you. The stories of Inquisitor Trevelyan are varied and artistic, and those made popular by spectacle have not always been kind. If I may be frank, it has incited a fresh wave of hate towards those like you and the former Enchantress._

_However, you will be welcomed as is your due as both Inquisitor and Hero, and you will be received by the Crown for the requested meeting. The new Divine has also requested a meeting with you. I will inform you of details on your arrival._

_The new Divine is safe, of course. No violence has yet been leveled, directly or symbolically. As you travel the Imperial Highway, take care._

_In Your Service,_

_Josephine Montilyet_

Kimani finishes her wine, folding the letter to store later in her traveling coat. She is glad, at least, that   the anger had not yet escalated. But it would. With the way Vivienne held herself, claimed her elevated place, exalted in confidence at her superior skill _as was her due_ , it would surely escalate.

Josephine had been diplomatic: “Bloodline,” was the kindest way Kimani had ever seen it put. Something had happened in Thedas, where those with no immediate ties to Rivain but blessed with the varying browns of their skin, the kink of hair or the soft, full features, were seen as less. Joked about in hushed whispers; she remembers all too well the memories of Vivienne’s that Cole should never have repeated.

And to have one such woman, and also mage, and _also_ a beacon of pride in every atom of herself, rise to the highest seat in the land?

“I’m already tired,” Kimani mumbles from her place on the floor, scratching her scalp.

“Is there trouble awaiting us?” Cassandra is not one to truly lounge, not in the way some throw limbs over pillows and watch the world through lazy, half-lidded eyes, but she looks as close as she’d ever get spread across her bed.

“As though it never ended,” Kimani says with a weary smile. “We’ll just have to be on our guard. These Orlesians; they were fine with my being a mage when I was saving them from red templars, but not now that one of mine is Divine. Typical. Now that the threat is over, I don’t feel bad saying how much I miss being a simple Inquisition agent.” She rummages through her knapsack to find a peace of _nesomni_ , pops it into her mouth.

They sit in the Seeker’s quarters, over-warmed by blazing hearth as they dry their sparring clothes. Cassandra decorates sparingly, the sweet notes of her nature scattered across her quarters. Glass inkwells and fine pens, one rug of mauve with silver threaded through it, the impossibly soft blanket tucked neatly over her bed. Of course, her books.  They look like a pair of greenhorn soldiers in scratchy, tan tunics and blotchy faces, smelling like simple lye soap and trough water. Now, with her hair sticking every which way and her flush bringing out her eyes, she smiles like sunrise.

Kimani raises an eyebrow. “What, Cassandra?”

“I always did wonder if you missed it. I was remembering a time in the field. In the Hinterlands, so long ago.”

“And smiling?”

Cassandra shrugs. “You were formidable, even then. And _beautiful_. And you are the only beacon I can see leading this place, now. The only one.”

 _“_ Must be going blind,” Kimani jests, even as she knuckles away tears. “But it’s alright. Enough about me. I want to hear about the Seeker Pentaghast, my dearest friend, off to become the leader she’s meant to be. How does she feel? Happy?

“I am simply relieved,” Cassandra laughs, standing. “I am relieved and…yes, happy. There is work ahead of me, and I want to do my part in bringing Thedas back to true peace in all of its factions. That is…that is what _I_ do, Kimani. It is both a compulsion and peace of mind. I am glad to have it.” She crosses her room to her wardrobe, pulling out a dark sash, reaching for a second before she sees Kimani simply knots her tunic in place, draping her scarf over her shoulders. They both look towards her wines, catching each other, and laugh.

“I will pray for you to find your own peace, my friend.”

“It’s peace _time_ , Cassandra. I’m sure I will. And I pray that you keep yours.”

Cassandra’s wine is lighter than the lightest of Kimani’s stash, which only means that it does not completely dry out the mouth. Still warm, still sharp; they drink an entire bottle and laugh like women who had never seen the worst of what the world could throw at them.

…

This time, it is Bull’s voice clear as day, urging to to wake _up_.

His voice is firm, a command, and she readily obeys; whatever she dreams of leaves her tense, clutching at Bull’s arm as he makes soft, soothing noises.

“Nightmare?”

Kimani thinks hard and draws the same, blank conclusion that she had a fortnight before. That’s twice now. At least, twice that she knows there’s something she should remember, and cannot.

“No,” Kimani says rubbing her eyes with one hand and lighting the fire with the other. “Nothing. Sorry I woke you.”

“Don’t be; I needed it. There was more than nothing in my dreams,” Bull says, voice cracked with sleep as he yawns.

“What…oh. Nightmares.”

Bull nods slowly, gazing out of the balcony window. “I hear it happens when you defect,” he grumbles, leaning back against her headboard. “Thought I’d gotten lucky, or something. But here they are.”

"Here they are," she echoes, stroking his leg. His skin is bumpy all over, goose-flesh. 

Sighing, Kimani shifts to straddle his blanketed lap, rising on her knees to look him in the eye. She cannot help herself, but spirits take her if she can’t at least soothe his sleeping fears. If anything, she can tame a nightmare.

 He’s defiant, looking away from her until she calls to him quietly, caressing his jutting, stubble-rough chin.

“Nightmares we can handle, Big’un. There’s herbs to help soothe you, so you’re less likely to have them. Ways you can relax. You can even have _nesomni_ if you like.”

“I don’t think it’s so simple.”

“It’s not,” Kimani shakes her head, nuzzling him as she does; this is what brings his arms around her, finally. “You have to overcome the fear, one way or another.”

“Right.”

“And so you should believe me when I say that whatever nightmares you have, are unfounded. You aren’t going to have any of the things happen that you think will happen, because you’re…because you defected.”

“But if I did," he begins, and the way his voice evens out has her immediately on edge, " If I went mad-”

“Don’t-”

“ _Kimani_.” His tone hardens to the same stone that had woken her from her empty, aching sleep, and she silences herself, glowering. She has used the same commanding voice with him, and _he_ had obeyed.  “If I go mad, you gotta put me down.” That stone rumbles in the silence, his words barely understandable beneath the onslaught of falling rocks but she knows every one as though she spoke them herself. And she’s considered this conversation since he made his choice on the Coast. Lover or no she knew he might ask and thus she knew her answer, even then, to this impossible request. The ease with which she had made that decision is not lost on her, and she doesn’t like to think of what it means.

 Kimani lays a hand on his chest. _Here. Here is where you are so tender._

Bull encircles her wrist with one massive hand, squeezing gently.

“I’ll tell you how I’ve told Cole.” Kimani says, sliding her hands up to stroke his face until he once again returns her gaze. “There is a potential in you, like there is in most everyone. It doesn’t mean much that yours is closer to your surface, unless it breaches. I see a breach, well. We know what I’ve done to those.” When he doesn’t even crack a smile, she sobers herself. “Alright. If you go mad I’ll put you down, Bull. If the Qun’s right about Tal-Vashoth and you lose yourself, I’ll kill you so Krem doesn’t have to.”

The words are blood-bitter on her tongue; Bull looks relieved. His cut hand slides up her back, wrapping lightly around the back of her neck. He digs his thumb into the sensitive tendon lining her shoulder, massaging.

 _Thank you,_ he means to say.

Kimani kisses his cheek, tries to move off of him and is held in place. She frowns, but does not fight. _No more talk of killing,_ she pleads silently.

“Think you can tell me how “nothing,” had you whimpering in your sleep?” Bull asks softly, his hold on her firm. “It’s only been a few months… the sleeping in bed with you, anyway, but I pick up on patterns pretty quickly. And that was a break in it. I don’t think it was the first.”

Now, it’s her turn to duck his gaze, but Bull doesn’t need her eye to try and compel her. He simply waits.

“I can’t remember,” she says, unwilling to extend the silence too long. Soon, the sun will be up. “The dreams slip from me quicker than I can catch them, and I don’t know why. Yet,” she adds, trying to draw confidence back into her voice. “I don’t know why yet, but they’re simple dreams. I will catch them. Oh…?” Kimani looks up when Bull suddenly takes her face in his hands, kissing her on the forehead. Then on her nose.

“Why?” She asks, stroking his chest.

Bull shakes his head. “Felt like it. You should keep parchment on you so you can write down the little things you do remember, until you catch them.”

“That’s a good idea.”

“Wanna hear another?” His voice goes playful as his hands slide to cup her rump, changing the atmosphere in the blink of an eye.

Kimani, relieved, smirks. “I can guess.”

Bull chuckles. “You… should put some smalls on this ass. We’ve got a journey to start this morning!” His grin splits his craggy face when she yelps at his hand meeting her ass cheek with a solid _thwack_.

“Asshole.” Kimani climbs off of him, blushing as she rubs at the sting. She doesn’t realize how weighty the tension is in the room until it begins to dissipate with their movement, but with the pace of the morning quickening as duty as much as her hearth warms her bones, she doesn’t have time to wonder who it all came from.

 

Leliana is the first to arrive at Skyhold’s gates at sunrise, and she’s not even going on this trip. Kimani greets her quietly; Bull brings her mount from its stall, keeping distance from the spymaster. Cassandra is next, followed closely by Rainier and an impeccably dressed Dorian. Sera drags Nashan to the gates eventually, and both women look sharp in their traveling gear as they curse each other up onto their mounts. Blackwall chuckles between them.

Varric comes last, strolling as only he can, with his signature grin tugging his mouth.

“Look at the lot of you,” He says, hands on his hips. “All official. Ready for a long, boring trip on the Imperial Highway?”

Dorian rolls his eyes as Kimani signals the guard to raise the gate. Leliana gives her letters sent to her from her agents, reminds her to mind herself: “Do try to stay your hand, Inquisitor. In this, you must be spectator.” Kimani can only nod, clasping the spymaster’s gauntleted hands in farewell.

She tries to look away when Leliana passes Bull a s dry, cordial look and a curt good-bye nod, tries harder when Bull does the same. What she would _not_ do was try to reconcile two stubborn murder-spies. Instead she coaxes her mount forward, and out of Skyhold, echoing Nashan’s _yip!_ of glee as they begin their journey.

Another good day of weather, of clear sky and warm weather. The previous spring is but a haze of color in her memory: the spring before that, unmentionable. Kimani tries, then, to take this stretch of blooming time in as many pieces as possible. Even if she’s en-route to the physical equivalent of the Void.

“I hate Orlais, Dorian. If I had the choice, I’d never go back,” Kimani murmurs as make their way down the Frostbacks. Her mount, Kost, snorts, and she rubs him soothingly between his horns. “Yes, I understand that’s where you’re from, Kost.”

Dorian looks between her and the Brecilian Surefoot, rolling his eyes. “Don’t talk to the moose. Honestly, precious, Orlais hates you too. Florianne conspired  with the enemy, but now you’ve left Orlesians with the memory of a royal being dragged into her own ballroom by her throat by a Marcher mage.”

Kimani smiles. That had been a horrible night with a lovely ending. And the dress she’d been given was beautiful, even if she’d been banged up from the fight.

She thinks about it, blush and soft against battle-weary skin after she’d done away with rift and its mistress. For a stretch of time it’s just her and that memory, and the sun, and the cool breeze off the mountains, as they make their way to the Imperial Highway and from there, Val Royeaux.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Questions and comments feed my broken soul. And they're tasty.


	5. Blossom

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The gang's in Orlais for Vivienne's ascension and honestly, compared to the last two years, it goes a'ight.

Kimani enters Halamshiral with blossoms picked by Sera and woven in by Nashan tangled in her hair, and she dares the guard at the city gates to say a word when his eyes widen at the dozen petaled bursts of color in white, kinky curls. Instead he focuses on the insignia of her brigandine and the green crackle in her bared palm, greeting her cordially and giving direction to her villa though she already knows it.

The Highway is nothing if not efficient; the only thing threatening their lives from Skyhold to Halamshiral was boredom. Thus, the blossoms.

Halamshiral is as lovely and old as it had been during Empress Celene’s summit; it’s quieter now, emptier of nobility, the Winter Palace looms on its place above the city, dark with disuse. To the elves they are unimportant, and Kimani enjoys the quiet change of scenery.

They reach their villa when the high-noon sun makes it most beautiful; striking the opened windows and pale stone pillars so as to make them gleam.

“Very fancy,” Nashan nods approvingly, trudging through the villa with her traveling cloak shrouding her, tapping grubby fingers over each bit of finery. “But this is not where the ceremony happens.”

“No, that’s across the water. We’ve an apartment in Val Royeaux as well, it’s just smaller. The ceremony isn’t for another few days, and the capital can be…”

“It’s a right shitshow sometimes,” Sera finishes for her, scoffing.

Kimani nods. “And if things are as tense as Josephine says, I’d rather us sleep some distance from it. We’re here as spectators, as guests, first and foremost.” She meets everyone’s eye here, and they all nod. Around them, the villa servant help move their luggage, filling the abode with the soft, busy sounds of a waking house. “Now, I’m going to go into the capital to speak with Josie. You can come if you like, or not. Either way, I’ll be back by morning latest.”

“Coming,” Nashan quips.

“Yeah,” Sera echoes. Bull begins rising from where he’s sunken into the largest sofa in the room, and Kimani raises her hand.

“You stay right there. The rest of you, relax. I’ll scope, get information from Krem and Leliana’s people.”

Her staff lay abandoned at Dorian’s feet as he sips at his wine goblet, comfortable as if he lived here year-round. He nods to her.

“I’ll make sure these meat-heads actually relax,” he says warmly, “so as to remember that though you are working, for them especially this is a week-long vacation.”

“The Iron Bull doesn’t vacation,” Bull calls, eyes half-closed as he rolls his wounded ankle.  
“He does when the Inquisitor says,” Kimani calls over her shoulder, missing the salute he gives her as his eyes close completely. Nor does she hear his snarky reply, though Blackwall’s distressed sigh in response is the last thing she hears before heading out with Sera and Nashan on her heels.

 

Krem meets them on the docks of Port Bénie looking fairly rosy-cheeked and going rosier when Kimani flings herself at him, grinning.

“You smell Orlesian,” Kimani teases once she’s finally let go of him. “All powdery and fresh.”

“It’s Lady Montilyet,” Krem mumbles as he nods to Sera and a blushing Nashan. “She keeps…spraying me with things.” He pulls Kimani in for another hug and whispers, “I love it. Do not tell chief.”

“You come back smelling like a boudoir and I. Won’t. Have to,” She says, patting him on his slack-jaw as she steps away. The dock is bustling; the four of them press together as they move through pulleys lowering travelling trunks from ships covered in grime from weeks on the Sea. Kimani hears a number of Ferelden accents as well as Marcher lilts, and a smattering of Nevarran trills. Everyone is dressed in heavy, dull-colored finery to ward off the chilly breezes and proclaim their stations simultaneously, their gazes high and unimpressed even as they surely suffer the wavering steps of new sea-legs once again readjusting. Kimani smirks when one such man stumbles mid-sneer at her, and inclines her head politely. She plucks a flower from her hair to blow it at him, but the wind carries it away. They press on.

“It’s good you left your staves behind,” Krem says once they clear the dock, following his lead down a wide, paved path. In the distance, the gates of Val Royeaux gleam in the afternoon light.

“So it’s that bad,” Kimani mutters, grumbling. “Not like the whole of Thedas doesn’t know I’m a mage, but Nashan is somewhat protected.”

“It’s symbolic more than anything, Worship. They simply don’t want to see it. Lady Vivienne as Divine is…interesting, already.”

“What, are they afraid she’ll receive the masses with her stave strapped to her back?” Kimani rolls her eyes. “You think it’ll get violent?”

“I do,” Krem nods, leading them briskly through the gates, Nashan on his left arm. Sera frowns at Krem’s words; her bow is always on her back, noble frippery or no. “I think it’ll happen after the festivities, however. Even these angry bastards wouldn’t desecrate a holy celebration like that. At least, I’m hoping.”

“Let’s do that,” Kimani says gravely.

Val Royeaux proper is just as busy as its docks as nobles settle and mingle; the atmosphere is heavy with cologne and politicking. The breeze blows their gaze over Kimani, peppering the air with whispers of “it’s the Inquisitor.”

She wonders after the stories told where they’d never seen her save or portraits. Wonders how ridiculous she is where she can’t reach.

Krem leads them to the apartments, knocking rhythmically against a large oak door. There’s a pause before Josephine’s familiar steps echo behind the door, and a few pulls at latches before said door opens, revealing the ambassador and her wide, welcoming grin.

“So you’ve made it,” She says, curtsying. “Excellent. Come in, come in.”  
…

Josephine has made the apartment her own in the short month she’s been in Val Royeaux; She prefers the sofa to the desk, it seems, having constructed a precarious-looking setup around the longest couch in the sitting room. She fills Kimani in as she works, unmoved as Kimani starts off sitting, then pacing the small room as her mind grows more fraught.

“War? You’re certain?”

“Of course I’m not certain, only I believe it might come to that once we truly see the path our new Divine sets us on. Vivienne is a revolutionary in her own way.”

“And anything she does, as long as it’s different from before, will be enough to get the masses bitching,” Kimani mutters, hands clasped tightly behind her. “Well. We’re not going to war.”

“We might be obliged if the Divine calls on us,” Josephine reminds her gently. “Though I do not think she will. Vivienne…is a force, Inquisitor, as we all know. All we need to do is smile through this ceremony, and make it back to Skyhold without adding to the tension.”

“So I can’t press the crown to leave my outposts alone?”

“I’m afraid you must tread lightly, Inquisitor, in all that you do on this trip. All leads back to the Divine in one way or another.”

In her mind’s eye, Kimani can very well see the roads wind like rivers until they connect at a center point, where Vivienne would stand.

“I always wondered why Vivienne would be interested in being Divine. I thought maybe Grand Enchanter would be her ambition. She’s a fucking genius, that woman,” Kimani says, impressed. “All roads lead now to The Iron Lady.”

“Divine _Victoria_ ,” Josephine corrects her, and when Kimani turns to question, the ambassador has a finger to her lips, holding out a goblet of wine for her.

Fitting. The name is all too fitting and a woman like Vivienne would only raise the bar, even when it came to a ceremonial moniker.

Silently, Kimani takes the goblet and toasts with Josephine when she raises her own.  
…

 

Divine Victoria is ordained somewhere secret within the Grand Cathedral, anointed and blessed and chanting Light. Kimani knows the verses as all Circle mages were taught, remembers the days fraught with holy stanza recitation as though they could pray the magic away.

“ _'Cross Veil and into the valley of dreams_  
_A vision of all worlds, waking and slumb'ring,_  
_Spirit and mortal to me appeared_  
_Grandeur of godhood no gaze could defile_ ,” She chants incorrectly, pulling the hood of her cloak over neatly-braided hair. The Divine isn’t reciting Andraste’s foray into the dreams, surely, but this is from the canticle Kimani likes most; for her, Andraste was a mage. She has always kept the thought to herself and remembers reading the histories, remembers thinking of how much of a Dreamer the Lady of Sorrow could have been.

“Praying, my friend?” Cassandra says incredulously as they walk to where the Inquisition would stand for the ceremony. The sea of people parts, rushing whispers around them. Orlesian frippery at its finest; jewel tones and pearls warm together in the morning sun, powdered faces poorly hidden behind half-masks.

Kimani shrugs, the studded collar of her jacket catching on a strand of hair, breaking before she can coax it gently free. “Reflex. I get too close to a proper church, and I have to recite something to stave off nagging enchanters,” she jokes, grinning even harder as Cassandra only scowls. It is an amused scowl, at least.

The steps of the Cathedral are littered in flowers and strips of silk under a layer of golden dust; Kimani knows she can’t credit Vivienne to her ceremony happening at the height of spring but spirits, was it convenient for the way the vines creeping across age-old stone were speckled with soft blossoms, wafting the fragrance of lily through the air.

Orlesian nobility amass in the Grand Cathedral’s courtyard and wait. The Inquisition stands in-uniform, a smattering of white amongst richly-colored attire, fidgeting; Varric taps his gloved fingers against his hips. Dorian stands with his arms folded, shifting weight from one leg to the other; on either side of him, Nashan and Sera oscillate between exaggerated frowns and barely-contained sighs. Cassandra’s eyes wander, and Kimani knows she squeezes her hands together behind her back, secretly impatient. Bull stands still, but Kimani knows, too, that the little vein in his neck jumps. Blackwall stands grim, nodding until Sera pokes him.

The nobility chatter around them; common people fill the spaces in-between as the morning wanes, the most devout of their lot. Or the most hopeful.

With both Corpyheus dead and the rise of a new Divine, it is indeed a time for hope.

When the Cathedral doors finally open the courtyard moves as one; everyone turns as the grand clerics file out, followed by various Revered Mothers all in glittering formal robes, to line either side of the Cathedral steps like shimmering spirits.

The choir sings inside and their bell-chime voices spill over the cathedral steps, bolstered by the clergymen’s heavier tones as they join in. It is a song praising the Maker, beseeching Them for guidance. Cassandra lends her voice aloud; Kimani hums along.

She’s been lucky, she realizes in how she could block out the Chantry since leaving her Circle. Even as Herald of Andraste, with whom she has less quarrel, she could still pretend that she had not only broken free from Ostwick, but from the cloak of the Chantry over her being. She could walk away from Mother Giselle, could never see an altar. Even as the Inquisition is Chantry-sanctioned, it has never felt like how it had in Ostwick.

The fantasy had ended with Corypheus’ defeat. As the new Divine presents herself this morning the world re-settles, and Kimani hums the tunes of chants.

Nashan’s gasp is sudden and small, as if she doesn’t want to do it. “ _Look_ at her.”

Vivienne floats from the cathedral seemingly on a cloud of her own making, tall and taller still with the imperious height of her headdress, aglow in snow-white robes limned in red and gold.

She is as beautiful as she’d been in her old attire, more dangerous as she walks with the pride of Thedas. In her hands is the deference of nations, and the way she smiles when she rises to a podium glittering in the sun says she knows it. And she will demand it.

“That is a mage,” Nashan says in wonder. “One of ours, even, Orlesian or no. Up there.”

“Does it please you, my lady?” Blackwall asks, grinning down at her. Nashan shakes her head.

“It confuses me,” She says, her words swallowed by the cheering as Divine Victoria raises her hands to the crowd.

For a moment Vivienne’s face is beautifully serene. Then, she smiles, teeth gleaming as her mahogany face glows with triumphant happiness.

“She will be different,” Kimani says to Nashan, smiling up at Vivienne even as her cousin disagrees with a disheartened sigh. “There will be Circles, but there will not be useless killing of mages. No massacre of Circles for things they’ve done for years.”

“That this is enough for you, elder cousin, only shows your Circle upbringing,” Nashan replies sadly. “She is a nice woman, but she is the Chantry.”

“It isn’t enough.” Kimani shakes her head earnestly. “It cannot be. But from Vivienne, I at least expect better than senseless murder.”

The rest of their party is silent, very well hearing the conversation and choosing instead to bask in Divine Victoria’s light as she speaks. Nashan politely turns her eyes back to the spectacle, leaving Kimani with guilt slicking her throat.

Left.

Kimani feels the intrusion like a searing stab to her brain and gasps, pressing a gloved hand to the side of her face and pulling frantically at the Fade to soothe the burn before it spreads.

Once. She’s encountered a blood mage once in her life as they crossed the Sea from Ostwick to Highever, had grown fond of a woman with scars splitting her arms like tree-roots. Once, lit from head to toe with too much blood lotus and floating dangerously away from herself, she had known the magic as it anchored her. Even as the mage had been gentle, had been helping, the magic had hurt just like this.

Aside from memory, the only aroma she knows now is the smell of blood.

“Inquisitor.”

Kimani returns to herself and finds Cassandra holding her up, worried. “Kimani, what’s wrong?”

“Oh, you’re not going to like it. Nashan,” Kimani raises her voice so the younger girl can hear. “You must look to my left.”

The girl frowns. “For wha-”

“To my _left_ ,” She all but hisses, ignoring the questioning stares of her party as they ride the wave of her discomfort. It is such a strange thing that she can’t hide it; she knows the keener of their group can probably smell her as she breaks out in a sweat simply from repelling a simple word.

“Gala…?” Nashan whispers, turned as she is bid, and Kimani stands up, pulling away from a flustered Cassandra.

“What is _happening_ , Inquisitor?” She asks sharply, looking in Nashan’s direction. The rest of their party shares the same confused expression, shifting towards her, their eyes following her cousin.

Kimani, too, turns to her left and sees Nashan halfway to a man both tall and dark, deep auburn hair braided down his scalp ending in two plaits that settle comfortably at his waist. He has the same full mouth that she and Nashan share, but every other cut of his features is sharper, his nose defined and hooked, almond eyes hard.

He’s got the pad of his thumb between his teeth, tongue unquestionably pressed against a bleeding wound.

Bull nearly gets past her before he’s stilled by her hand; they watch Nashan nearly stumble as she makes for the man, unsure and yet so sure as she hesitates, hands reached out for him. Her form shrinks as she hunches, inching towards him. The man—Gala— only watches her at first. But as the crowd around them cheers what was surely a fine speech by Divine Victoria, he grins wide and closes the space between them, catching her in a fierce embrace.

“ _Kadan_ ,” Bull says harshly, gripping her shoulder painfully to drag her from the fog of want she feels watching her cousins.

“What?” She says dumbly, following his gaze into the crowd. She can’t see what he sees, can’t follow a single person in a moving, loud mass of bodies as well as he. But she sees the glint of a weapon, sees one body moving too quickly and towards the Cathedral. Towards Vivienne.

Instantly, Kimani claims her target; she moves with the body, following it as she picks up speed, pushing through the false-celebration as she recognizes the Orlesian assassin like a bad dream; The Winter Palace had been rife with such thin killers. In Val Royeaux herself, she’d killed a trio on Josephine’s behalf. They moved near-unnatural, darting their bodies about in an attempt to not only kill efficiently, but beautifully.

She won’t catch him on-foot, but if she can get a good shot…

There.

Kimani casts a stunning spell that hits the assassin square in their back; the crowd erupts as they watch the assassin shake the stun off and moves ever-forward.

By now, Vivienne sees, and is still, her mask of genteel warmth frozen on her face, the closest Kimani’s seen her to fear.

 _Shit shit shit_. The crowd gives her space and she tries to move closer before she conjures fire, making to roast the assassin. She rises to full height and throws herself into the volley, stumbling forward.

And crumples to the ground as a Holy Smite’s familiar anvil drops on her chest.

Her cry is lost in the jerk of her body against cobblestone, lost as the crowd screams around her. But not, it seems, because of her. Kimani struggles to catch her breath in a sea of people completely preoccupied with something else, but she is drained of mana, strength, will. Husk, she feels like a husk but there is an assassin and she needs to reach Viv—

“When you’re feeling better, I’ll apologize,” Bull rumbles, plucking her off of the pavement. “I’ll fucking prostrate myself if you want, _kadan_ , I swear. But otherwise, you’d be hurt worse. Or…worse. And it’s good. I promise. The Divine is alright,” He adds earnestly when Kimani can only move her mouth soundlessly, “But her appointment is off to a shaky start.”

Bull looks ahead, keeping his gaze steady when she smacks the open palm of her hand against his chest, a blow meant to hurt if only she had the strength. _Angry_ , she thinks pointedly, in hopes that he’d know.

But, more than anything, she’s tired. She fights to keep her eyes open as she peers over Bull’s shoulder. The Divine is gone, her shining light replaced by the ugly glint of templar armor.

“Fuck,” She rasps, eyes rolling back as her vision wavers, pressing her face to Bull. Still nothing.

The Inquisition makes directly for their apartments, Kimani knows. And when they make it, when the calm scent of Josephine’s incense envelops her she gives up, and gives in to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kimani chants from the Canticle of Andraste, from "The Maker Appears to Andraste," which can be found on the wikia.


	6. Little Disarray

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kimani and Viv say good-bye. Galani says hello. 
> 
> ft. Josephine's small Orlesian apartment sitting room, and silly muggle plotting.

There are too many people in the sitting room when Kimani cracks one heavy eye open; she wakes in begrudging jolts, sleep-leaden as she tries to discern the noise swimming in her ears.

The advent of voices in her head is unending; Kimani is tired of them, whether human or spirit. She is tired of having to listen.

Knees shift beneath her and she realizes she’s settled across Bull’s lap, his hand a warning weight on her stomach that presses uncomfortably when she tries to sit up.

“ _Taashath, kadan_ ,” He says softly, laying his other hand gently on her forehead as she groans; no matter the amount of creams she rubs into his hands, they are an eternal expanse of rough callouses and scars that feel lovely everywhere but her face. She forces both eyes open, blinking until her vision clears and she’s looking up at her craggy-faced heart.

“Drink.” Bull presses a vial of lyrium to her lips. He holds it there until she takes it from him, scowling at the smell. “You’ll wake up a lot better with it, so sayeth Dorian.”

“I know how lyrium works,” Kimani grumbles as she tips the potion into her mouth, eyebrows raising at its potency. She can feel it course through her veins like a welcome chill, turning her skin to gooseflesh. “Good stuff.” She smiles up at him before remembering he’s the reason she’s a blob of useless flesh; she raises her marked hand and sees the Anchor is just as bright as it had been that morning. A “normal” glow, none of the overlit pains that had ailed her in Skyhold. If smiting and chaos keep it contained, then she thinks it might have to consume her sooner rather than later; she won’t be smote too many more times if she can help it.

_I was smote. A templar fucking smote me._

Her memories rush out of order, vivid and loud until she sneezes suddenly, bringing her firmly into the present.

An assassin. A Holy Smite. A blood mage.

The latter stands in front of her, across the room with his back to the wall and his wrists bound in front of him, the iron glowing the same color as Dorian’s illuminated palms. Kimani rises to the wave of Dorian’s magic, familiar like a warm hearth, and she feels the urge to lend to it; her new cousin looks mean and all too ready to test his captor.

And _strong_ , blood magic aside.

Galani watches her intently, dark eyes latched onto her as she sits up in Bull’s lap. His eyes are like hers, she realizes now that he’s closer, turned down at the ends and stony. Rarely friendly; none call her eyes warm or welcoming. Galani raises a dark eyebrow when Bull’s hand curls over her thigh.

 Kimani levels with him for a moment, a thousand questions burning the back of her throat before she swallows them down. Later, later.

The rest of her squad has settled into the small living room like old statues rooted to the ground so that the room grows even smaller. Dalish, too, has appeared from wherever she’d perched, grim as she leans against an equally disgruntled Krem.

Nashan stands off to Dorian’s left, watching the magic that bound her cousin and Dorian knows, turning to her periodically to simply acknowledge her presence and that yes, he is aware of his treading on thin ice. Always considerate, always a gentleman. Galani’s brow furrows when he regards Dorian, reading over the man’s body with an air of disapproval.

The small living room is crowded with them all, packed with the overwhelmingly dark aura unbroken by the high noon sun shining through the open windows. Kimani’s head is crowded with questions.

“Vivienne is safe?”

“Yes,” comes a dozen different voices.  Josephine draws her eye with a demure wave of her hand.

“And the assassin apprehended. The templar who attacked you is also in custody. There was a ruckus in the plaza, partially of our doing, but it was eventually contained. We have been informed to wait on the Divine’s word, whenever it may come.”

Kimani nods, running her hands over frizzed braids that pull, now that stress weighs her down. Her fingers pull the ends apart as she speaks.

“There’s nothing I can do until we get word, then?”

“It’s better that you remain here, Inquisitor. What with being attacked. We don’t know why it happened.”

“Oh, no?” Kimani scoffs. “I’d bet our coffers the templar’s a jumpy kid that saw a well-known mage moving toward the Divine. But no one is worried about me, this time. This isn’t about me; if it was, I’d have been down when I cast the _first_ time.”

Kimani paces in the patch of free floor available to her, running through her correspondence with Jospehine, Vivienne. With Krem’s own information, with what she’d seen and felt at the Cathedral. This was about Vivienne. The Iron Lady, powerful mage, as Divine. As the crux of a religion that…that _fed_ off of the subjugation of mages.

A chant, that all mages, Circle or no, know: _Magic exists to serve man, and never to rule over him._

 _“_ Bull, what are you thinking?” Kimani glances sideways at him, is shocked to see him grinning at her.

“All you, Boss.”

Kimani starts, catching her rebuttal before she nods, rolls her neck to give her time before she faces Josephine.

“The templar wasn’t for me, Josie,” she says softly, letting the pieces fall together in her mind as she speaks them aloud. She can see how it connects, can see a firelit line from assassin to templar to Vivienne, and feels her own angry fire stoked for it. “It makes no sense to send anything but a mage to kill a powerful mage, especially when said mage can see the attack coming. And particularly Vivienne; she’s all but famous in Orlais. Who’d want to be that unfortunate person? But killing the Divine, no matter who it is, is sacrilegious. The assassin was not an assassin.”

“And he was protected. My spell should have stunned him, but he kept moving. Only when I meant to kill him was I hit with the good ol’ Holy Smite. I think he was only meant to provoke Vivienne as I was provoked. The Divine using magic on the day of her ascension. Think of it. No matter the reason. Think of why that’d be impetus to remove her, she who no one really wants. Not really, not true.”

“So you are saying that the Divine was set up?” Josephine asks, serious. “To defend herself?”

The room has been largely, uncharacteristically silent but now, its so much so that Josephine’s words seem to echo. All eyes watch Kimani as she shrugs helplessly.

“Yeah. That young Templar could be excused as a jumpy novice. A big mistake, but still an understandable one. Better than killing her, and think of what the pamphlets would say tomorrow. _A Divine at the mercy of a Templar is no true Divine._ That mages are truly at the service of their magic. That Thedas should not be at the service of magic. And on, and on.”

The hate of the Chantry is often a bearable burden. From childhood to the grave, mages understand such adversary as a fact of life; Kimani remembers being eight, almost nine, woken from her first Dream with her mother’s wall scorched form floor to ceiling. She remembers being taught that now she was something to be feared, even more so for the reach of her ability. All of this at _eight,_ while she contemplated her newly-whitened locks in a burnished mirror, while her mother held back tears as she explained what had happened to her, why her dreams bit at her fingers like teeth. 

But, again: A bearable burden.

“Oy, you all don’t be so grim,” She says finally, waving her hands at the room as the silences grows heavier. “They _failed_. And before we leave this forsaken country, Vivienne will know if she doesn’t already and she can bite back however she likes. Let’s not act as if this is the strangest thing we’ve encountered together, my friends.”

But they are somber, quiet. Even Sera. And Kimani understands.

 

 

They wait for word for hours. The living room eventually comes alive with small chatter, with the soft _clang-clang_ of undone armor and light _tings_ of skilled fingers checking familiar metal. Kimani forces Dorian off of Galani, who doesn’t move when his magical bindings fade away, useless shackles thumping onto the thick, carpeted floor. When she asks Nashan to take him into one of the back rooms her cousin obeys, taking Galani’s hand and kissing it before leading him away.

“We get word, you call me,” She tells the room. “Otherwise, leave us be till I come out.”

The door is hardly closed before Nashan speaks.

“You didn’t have to bind him,” she hisses, standing. She still has to look up at Kimani, who leans against the closed door with her arms crossed. Galani sits obediently on the bed, his wrists pressed together as though Dorian’s magic still holds them.

“He used blood magic on me, little love. I had to do something,” she admonished gently. “I’m actually surprised that he’s here at all.”

“Nashan convinced me that you wouldn’t have someone pull me apart. I admit I hadn’t expected you to push back so quickly. Did I hurt you?” Galani asks, his voice a deep baritone. His common tongue is clipped and slow and accented heavily, the way Nashan’s becomes when she’s excited. Kimani knows Gala had scarcely left Rivain before The Day, that he had three languages before he had Common tongue; his Common is carefully constructed around them.

Kimani stares hard at Galani before answering. His dark skin is warm, the smooth surface of it dissected with pale pink scars and ink-black tattoos where she can see on his forearms. His sleeves are bunched but not rolled and are already threatening to slide back down.

 She can imagine him presenting himself to the others _Yes, this is what I am_ , to the tune of Nashan’s insisting that he was safe; he at least _looks_ like the kind of man who tells as it is.

Meeting Nashan had been revelation, a gift at the end of a road of turnmoil. This man in front of her was something else entirely. He was a familiar feeling, one she realizes she is not eager to uncover.

“You ever try that shit on me again, I’ll Litany you, then I’ll knock you out, pull you into the Fade, and leave you there,” She says coldly, ignoring Nashan’s pointed gasp. ”Blood magic is not an acceptable means of communication.”

Galani makes a face like a chastised child, almost mocking in its exaggeration. “I’ll keep that in mind. My apologies, younger cousin.”

“Inquisitor,” Kimani corrects him sharply, casting a warning glance at Nashan as Josephine knocks timidly on the door. “I don’t know you yet, Galani Lia.”

The man inclines his head without question, and Kimani would put money on mockery here, as well. “Fair enough, Your Worship.”

“Better,” she tosses tritely over her shoulder as she turns to leave. She wants to say something with bite, something to sting the way his derision stung, but she doesn’t think she can say much to a man that should be dead. All the hurt has already happened to him.

…

The Grand Cathedral is decades of excellence carved into stone, dyed in jeweled paints spread over ceilings and walls, paved in fine ceramic and welcoming in the light through stained glass. It is old and beautiful; Vivienne looks utterly part of its scenery as she sits in the center of a long sofa, her habit less extravagant in the confines of her chambers. Still, she wears the markings of her station. She looks fairly pleased that Kimani has done the same thing, the Inquisition symbol emblazoned across her light, semi-formal armor.

“You acted rashly, my dear,” Vivienne scolds gently, lifting her teacup to her lips. “And you saved my life. Or, that is what we’ll be telling everyone. Personally, it was not the best decision. And untoward, to see the Inquisitor felled by a Holy Smite not six months after defeating Corypheus.”

“Better me than the Divine. I reckon I’ll get marks for heroism,” Kimani shrugs, reaching for her cup. The tea is cinnamon, ginger, cloves; Kimani breathes in and feels rejuvenated, sips the tea as quickly as heat will allow so she’s engulfed in utter comfort.

She must take such peace where she can. She must acquire more of the tea.

Vivienne waits patiently for her to regain focus. “I would not have risen to such gauche bait, I hope you realize.”

“You would have called his bluff?”

“I would have. And if he were a dedicated puppet…” At this, Vivienne reveals the short length of a bejeweled dagger. It catches the light for a second before she replaces it in the folds of her robe. “The Divine is allowed to defend herself. She is simply not to call on the Fade to do so.”

“It’s such _shit_ , Viv-”

“ _Language_ ,” Vivienne hushes her, never raising her voice. “Inquisitor. The time for your rashness, and your insistence on debasing yourself, is over. I will not have it in my presence, and you will not continue such foolishness. There are no more duchesses for you to drag by the hair; that is no longer an admissible Game.”

“It was by the neck.”

“You wish to try me, my dear?”

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Kimani rolls her eyes, crossed on leg over the other. Then she sighs, looking dejectedly at Vivienne. “But you’ve thrown yourself into so much _danger_ , Madame. Most Holy.”

Kimani and Vivienne have rarely seen eye-to-eye, could not properly be called friendly until preparations for Halamshiral brought them together. Their friendship is threaded with quiet respect, occasional conversation, and soft smiles in passing. But Kimani would go to war for any of her team, no matter where they ended up in the world, because, even if only for that tragic moment, they were _hers_.

Vivienne smiles knowingly, clicking her tongue. “I play as I always have. I’ve simply ascended a different field. But, Inquisitor, I’ve brought you here to thank you personally, as I do not think we’ll be seeing each other again for some time.”

Kimani blinks. “Thank me. For?”

“For being rash,” Vivienne smiles. “It was endearing, in all its stupidity. And a smart move by The Iron Bull, at least. As much as it is helpful that he knows how to channel your rage…”

“…I must learn to do it on my own. It is a process, Most Holy, but I won’t be controlled by anyone but myself. No matter the intention,” Kimani declares, squaring her shoulders as she speaks.

Vivienne sits back, her regal face softening with approval. “I must thank you for this as well, Inquisitor. It is good to know Skyhold rests in your still-formidable hands.”

The women grow quiet, smiling at each other in their soft, wordless way. Kimani tries not to think of the good-byes she must yet say as she pours the pair of them a last round of tea.

…

 

There’s three of them now.

Bull stands in the doorway of the room that Younger and the Other One occupy, and both stare up at him with looks he’s only seen on one other face. The Other One looks more like Kimani, more angles. Eyes. Seen some things Bull doesn’t want to know about, honestly.

“You are her lover,” he says softly. Bull nods, tilting his head at the man’s easy, vaguely familiar voice.

“And you’re Big Cousin. You gonna give me a stern talking-to?” He grins when Galani doesn’t respond. “I’ve heard about you, and I respect what you went through. I’m just here to make sure you’re not…”

“…a raging blood murderer,” Galani finishes for him, giving Bull a dazzling smile. “Don’t worry, my cousin’s lover. I’m sure I’m only as dangerous as her. Or you.” Galani stares pointedly at the scars covering Bull’s chest. Nashan is quiet beside him on the bed, almost reverently so; Bull’s seen how she’s softened, how her eyes shine on the brink of tears as they have since she first saw him in the crowd. On the anniversary of the day that the Rivaini Circle was destroyed, she’d been somber; Kimani had asked him to keep his distance, her own face flush and splotched with emotion he did not ask about. This new cousin had been one of the many presumably dead. Alive again.

Bull has no context. He has never thought someone dead for more than a day at most before they proved otherwise, drug up from the rivers and forests of Seheron within an inch of their lives. He’s never had anyone come back from the dead. Younger, he knows, is beyond him for the moment.

Galani watches him, his smile faded; he begins stroking his long braids, tucking loose, frizzy hairs behind his ears. Nervous tick. “You frighten me, qunari. I can’t read a damned thing from you.” His fidget continues as he twirls the end of one braid around his finger.

“But you have ways of reading that I can’t stop.”

“I wouldn’t use blood magic on you. You have absolutely no way of defense. I’m not a monster.”

“Just a maleficar.”

“Yes,” Galani says brightly, wrapping his arm around Nashan when she starts. “Just a maleficar. Like the Inquisitor is just a _somniari_. Like you are just an ex-agent of the Ben-Hassrath.” Galani stands, his tall frame unfurling like a new vine. He still has to look up at Bull- everyone has to look up at him- but it’s but a good leap less than many, and his expression holds none of the insecurities most folks have at facing down a behemoth.

Yeah. This one is Kimani. Even pretty like her, carved and defined, though his air of mystique is laced with what Bull recognizes as an old, hard pain. He can’t relate, and yet he feels on-level with this man’s hurt.

The door to the apartment opens, Dalish and Krem’s laughter tempered by Kimani’s low chastising, and all three in the bedroom turn look to her.

Kimani’s eyes widen with shock as she regards them. She and Nashan exchange a secret look. Bull hasn’t translated it, but he thinks it well enough that he knows it’s there.

“With me, Bull,” Kimani says, her voice thin and weary.

Bull turns to Galani and Nashan, nods his farewell. Galani inclines his head regally.

“Nice talk.”

The emotions Nashan wrestles with – happiness, confusion, constant flashback of the last time she saw her cousin, the smell, the taste, the feel of their last meeting, the shock of seeing him again so long after mourning him—keep her quiet. She sends Bull off with a listless smile, and Bull leaves only then. Poor kid.

 Kimani takes his hand, takes him into the next room which is not where he’d seen this going. But then, he doesn’t know what Ma’am told her.

“Hey, _kadan_ ,” He says gently, sitting when she waves him down. “Everyone’s just a bag of laughs, today.”

 She doesn’t answer him, sighing she removes the harder pieces of her armor, rolling her neck as she stretches. “Will you sit with me for a while?”

He thinks its sweet that she always asks so timidly. As if he’d ever deny her. “Sure, but from my memory I’ve still got an apology to make.”

Kimani nods. “You owe me. But later, alright?” She looks him in the eye, and Bull feels his chest tighten at the sight of her. That’s something he’s used to, something that’s been happening since she reappeared in the snow after Haven.

“Alright. C’mere.”

“You’ve got to be quiet,” She says as she comes, fitting herself easily onto his lap. “You’ve got to listen.”

“…for what?”

“Shh.”

So they sit, Bull breathing in the Orlesian-marred smell of her hair, her stroking his side in the silence.

Until they can hear Nashan and Galani’s voices, the bed where they sit just on the other side of the thin wall. They speak in Rivaini so rapidly that it’s hard for Bull to follow, until Nashan’s voice breaks, and she’s crying, and she’s laughing, and Galani’s low voice coos until it, too breaks.

He can catch the words better, now.

_My girl, you’ve gotten big. And strong. Who has taught you in my absence?_

  _I’ve missed you, Gala. Auntie will be so happy. Please, come with us to Ostwick._

_For you, I will. I swear it._

He’s not sure how much she understands but Kimani holds him tighter, face pressed to his chest. She holds on, even when an eruption of laughter from the sitting room breaks the semi-silence and the magic—the kind none of her kind can cast, the kind that comes from things neither he nor she fully understands—shatters.

Sometimes, the pair of them have more in common than they realize. Bull likes these moments, thinks they’re nice, but he’s pretty sure she needs them. Pretty sure that for her, they’re necessary.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Questions and comments are appreciated!


	7. To Push and Pull

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kimani starts remembering her dreams. Bull doesn't know how to fight what he can't see. He also can't really fight Kimani's cousin cus it'd be wrong on a few levels. 
> 
> Galani begins to appeal to his cousin with memory. 
> 
> ...and then boom.

_Wake **up** , spectator._

_When I wake, I don’t remember._

_Ah, but this is a true dream. Can you not feel it?_

The Fade is familiar on her skin and well-missed in all of the time since she’d blocked herself from this part of her nature. It eases over her like morning mist, chilling the dips and curves of body in welcome. Convinced that this is the Fade proper, Kimani breathes deep.

She is alone. Whomever speaks to her has hidden their face.

“I should not be here.” Kimani steps further into the obscurity, her feet finding solid ground beneath a foot of ominous fog that grips the bare skin of her ankles like eager jewelry. “Tell me why I am.”

“A Holy Smite knocks everything out of whack,” The voice says. “Even the paltry barriers you choose to indulge, Inquisitor.”

The voice betrays itself, or begins to; Kimani surveys her surroundings for the umpteenth time, slower. Nebulous fade, Non-descript. But the way its tendrils endeavor to cling to her is nothing less than the memory of Adamant; this could be the Nightmare’s domain with a bit more willpower, a little imagination.

“Paltry barriers that have done their job for near six months,” she says. The more it speaks, perhaps the more it will reveal. She steps forward hesitantly, and then again when her foot catches; once, years ago now, she’d stepped too eagerly into an empty dreamscape and had fallen through. Not the most fun she’s ever had.

The voice tightens. “And yet here you are, conversing with what very well may be a demon. Walking blindly into the unknown like some tale the old women tell children at night. Never to return.”

“You aren’t a demon.” Kimani shakes her head at her voice. And at herself; she has not been meticulous. Hadn’t she been warned that she could not falter, that the silence of _nesomni_ in her belly would not be enough? Now, she forgets dreams and forgets lessons (they’d taught, oh how they’d _taught_ , about the Holy Smite), and forgets herself. In politics. In the pursuit of family that…

Kimani swallows, suddenly warm where the Fade is not, with guilt.

 _None of that_ , she chastises herself, eyes darting into the mist in search of eyes looking back. Something of her magic remains stable; she has not yet been detected. _This is not the place._

“Good,” the voice says evenly, and she curses herself for thinking so loudly. “Very good. How easily we forget ourselves in times of peace. The truth is that we are always at war, even if it is war we know we shall win. To be friend to the Fade is an eternal struggle.”

“It is not my friend. _We don’t want her_ ,” Kimani repeats what Cole told her in the aftermath of Adamant, “ _Give her green_.”

“ _We don’t want her body. Give her green so she may endure_. Cole hears much, but he is oftentimes confused.” The voice lightens with the tight smile of its owner. Kimani finally raises her brows to the mist, breath shallow as a longing she hadn’t thought she harbored for him grips her body like a thousand creeping vines. She holds her hands to her chest, bent at the waist as she tries to catch her breath.

“Solas,” Kimani calls, Eyes scanning the Fade in hopes that he would appear, to no avail. “Solas.”

“Inquisitor,” Solas says warmly, the way he’d done just after waking them from dreams dreamt in his rotunda. “It is good to hear such recognition in a voice that I value.”

His own voice comes from everywhere, is every push of fade-mist over her skin; Kimani hardens herself against the trembling started in her hands, straightening her body.

“You…don’t want me to find you. But you would let me know that _you_ can find _me_ ,” She says.

An easy pause; Kimani can image him smiling in his slight way.

“Your qunari is growing on you. Or perhaps you have always been so observant? Indeed you’ve never trusted me, young one. And yet, now how your heart beats to know I’m near.” This, she cannot deny as she tried to calm her breathing. “Our companionship was a true one. I did enjoy your company.”

“And then you left.” Kimani spreads her fingers so she splits fade-mist into pieces on par with those she conjures herself; as she speaks to Solas the fog grows thicker, heavier. His, no doubt, like the way his shadows hulked and swallowed hers when he occupied the atrium like some predatory darkness. “You did not stay, not even to see how the Anchor fared after-”

“After you swallowed Corypheus into a rift blossomed from his own heart,” Solas finishes, echoing so that _heart_ repeats as though it beats. “And how is the Anchor?”

“It has yet to consume me, so I’m assuming it’s alright.” _It hurts. It hurts, it hurts. It flares._ She wants to say, but she guards her thoughts with iron in the Fade. It’s far too easy to let them spill here where there were few limits. “ _Why_ are you hiding from me?”

“Because you are my favorite _somniari_ for good reason.” Solas’ voice grows deep, rumbling like thunder. “And I simply would keep myself hidden.”

“Solas, I don’t care where you’ve gone. You’ve gone. I wouldn’t waste time searching for someone who doesn’t want to be found.”

“No, indeed not yet.”

And, as it had been nearly every time she and he had fallen asleep in the rotunda to wake together in the fade, every time she walked that realm and saw the way he moved through it like a second home, Kimani grows cold with dread in the silence he lets linger. The space around her is still thick with fog but clear of demons; it is not what lurks the Fade that is the threat, she thinks. At least, not anything but the speaker himself.

“In a way I care for you, Inquisitor,” Solas says, unmoved by the shift in atmosphere he surely feels, where he is. “In my pride of your ability, I care for you. It is why you will remember some of this venture. I apologize for robbing you of the others.”

Panic. “What-”

“Until next time, young friend. Waking up will hurt.”

Kimani gasps as, like a ghost, Solas appears before her, his form faded and cracked with light. Swiftly he lay one bony hand on her forehead, smiling.

And Kimani wakes with the pain of a swift blow to her stomach.

“ _Fuck_ ,” she hisses, rolling off of the bed. “Fucking blighted shitting _vashedan vene-fucking…”_ She heaves, slamming her hands on the floor. The pain blossoms, one wave after another, and she struggles to her feet.

“Pass,” She growls, stumbling around the bed. She gets to the room’s wardrobe and presses her forehead to the smooth wood. “Pass, pass, _pass_.”

Kimani takes a deep breath, holds it. The room, already dark in the dead of night, blackens before she exhales. Then, she takes another.

 _Always at war_ , he had said. _Always at war._

 _Tired of war,_ she thinks as the pain subsides. _Very, very tired of war._

By the time she breathes evenly, dizzy and covered in a film of sweat, she’s back on the floor, her marked hand palms-up in her lap. She wiggles her fingers around the too-familiar light, pulsing with her heartbeat like pumps of blood pushing fadestuff from the last true rift of any threat.

_Elgara vallas, da'len._

“Oh spirits, not you too,” Kimani sighs as the Well burbles in her ears. “Can’t you simply tell me what you want? What _she_ wants?” But the poem continues, crooning through her and leaving nothing but the unnatural slick of elvhen understood. “The goddess is a cryptic bitch.”

 _No more_ , the Well says in Common. _No more._

 _“_ Oh aye, I won’t bad-mouth the mistress if we can stop with the silly _somnia_ …” Kimani cuts herself off with a laugh. She had perused the library at Skyhold, had found precious little on _somniari_ save for a few accounts of them by observant mages. They always ended in the dreamer’s death, one way or another. It had been the same at Ostwick Circle, and the reason she’d not taken her research further than her own experience. Even Dorian, who Kimani was convinced knew most things, could not find anything more than a few passage on the _somniari_ that weren’t in archaic Tevene.

The elves, however were of different knowledge.

“Am I being protected?” Kimani asks softly, leaning her head back against the wardrobe. “Or am I simply being warned?”

Outside of the room Kimani hears the apartment door open, hears Krem’s familiar clang-clang of armor, then his warm voice as he greets Bull in hushed tones. It does them no good; A voice groggy and Antivan hushes them so the men shuffle, trading places. They had insisted on keeping watch, in case any of the commotion from Vivienne’s ascension decided to follow them back; Val Royeux was calm, but tensions crested the surface now, coals waiting for flame.

She’d taken a Holy Smite to keep that flame at bay a little longer.

Bull’s slow, lumbering footsteps grow louder as he comes to the room. He opens the door slowly so as not to rouse her, and yet he doesn’t seem surprised to find her on the floor, in the dark. The green of her mark lights his eye, bounces off of the pair of short glasses he holds in one large hand, careful not to spill their contents.

“You make my heart beat too hard, and my head dizzy,” Bull says quietly, closing the door behind him. “And usually, you’re at least easy to work around.”

Kimani blinks; the ways in which which he makes tender his tongue comes in unexpected slips of it, both heavy to hold and soft to the touch. They are never the point of his speech, there is alway something else to say; she falls into the path his words carve. “You mean like this morning.”

“Well, you worked _with_ me there. You just didn’t know it. Could you get one of the lights? Thank you, _kadan_ ,” he says when she lights the one nearest him, and he sets one whiskey glass on the nightstand before coming to her.

“It’s not wine,” he says as she hands her the glass, “But it sounded like you needed a little more than wine.”

Kimani sips at the whiskey, coughing as it heats her throat

“What did you hear?”

“Well,” He grunts as he sits on the bed. “I particularly liked the flourish of swears in the beginning. You got a little mumbly after that, though.” He lifts his glass to her before he drinks, knocking it back in one swallow. “So, what are you going to tell me? You figure out what’s going on with these dreams, _kadan_?”

Kimani follows his lead and tosses the rest of her drink down. It scalds, and she squeezes her eyes shut, hissing as Bull chuckles kindly. “I am being visited by Solas,” She coughs, thumping her chest.

Bull raises his brow at her, smile dissipated. “Like… a ghost? Nightmare?”

“No.” Kimani taps bare feet on the floor. “Visited like _somniari_ visited. Though, I don’t know what he wants.”

To her surprise, Bull snarls low, running his hand over his face.“I knew we should have kept fucking looking for him. He slipped away too easily. And now he’s back, but only in your head.” His muscles flex as he rolls his shoulders.

Kimani knows how little Bull actually liked Solas, despite their dance around each other. His disappearance had only served to heighten it. Solas was something he couldn’t fully grasp.

The thought that his evasion of Bull’s talents has everything to do with the things that he and Kimani share is enough to give her pause. And to want, desperately, another drink.

“Easy,” she hushes him, raising her marked palm so he follows the light and looks at her again. “Simply be glad he’s not in your head, Big’un. Don’t you think I can get him out of my own?”

It wouldn’t be like him to answer, because “I don’t know,” scares him more that a definitive in either direction.

“Come here,” He says instead, beckoning her. “It still hurts, doesn’t it?”

Kimani scoffs, smiling as she stands to stretch limbs that ache as though she’d spent the day hacking through some lowland’s thick underbrush; indication that she dreamt deeply, that her body responded to such dreams. The waking pain had left its echo in her stomach so she winces as she bends herself.

“I’ll massage you if you tell me what happened. What he said, how he sounded. Shit, what he smelled like. Give me something to work with.”

She eases onto the bed, lets him lay her across his lap belly-down, groaning as he works his hands into her shoulders.

“Should I remind you of how the Fade looks?”

At this, he scoffs. “I’m pretty sure I remember that _vashedan_ death trap. But tell me anyway.”

So she begins.

 

…

 

They quit Orlais down two warriors and up a mage, and no one is particularly happy about it, including Bull.

Kimani lets Younger vouch for Galani, who indeed wishes to return to Skyhold with them. Bull thinks that’s…a bit dumb, but the maleficar keeps to himself, keeps to Younger’s side and his eyes to the trees when he isn’t trying to feel Kimani out.

She herself is still saying goodbye to her warden and her Seeker, even if only in her head; she had nearly cried sending the pair of them off, watching them leave in full, shining armor. Bull knows that both warriors had known her first, when she was "nothing but a damned recruiter in the Hinterlands," and held special places in her heart. And they loved her, in the quiet way those who loved her did.

The evening stretches and she walks ahead, lost somewhere she's made certain not to be found by anyone but herself. She lingers, always. It’s never gotten any less dangerous.

Now that the fucking bald apostate’s visiting her dreams, he wonders. He doesn’t even know what he wonders about, beyond what reasons why the elf was hiding both in and out of sleep. People hide out of guilt, out of intended treachery, out of guilt for intended treachery. It makes little sense to hide from the people that became one’s team. Bull sees southern loyalty as a roll of waves; depending, he could find people loyal as if the Qun guided them, or the utter opposite. In the Ben-Hassrath sense, one was always loyal to the mission. People were feathers on the breeze, or droplets of water in the surging tide; one must always remain loyal to the current.

The Iron Bull cannot stand Solas because he has no current. Nothing but the Fade anchored him, and a magic realm chock-full of demons is a _shitty_ anchor.

“Is it standard qunari law to always look disgruntled?” Galani asks as he and Nashan come to Bull’s side. “Or does your face only soften in the privacy of my cousin’s bedroom? Perhaps not even there.” His accent is heavy and precise, his face easy as he tries slipping insults between Bull’s ribs like flowers in a vase. “And do you always walk behind her?”

 _This guy_ , Bull thinks, acknowledging the man slowly, bored. Nashan is quiet, but Bull can’t blame her. Not his little buddy, no matter how she feigns at disliking him. Loyalty; the littlest mage was nearer to qun-levels, steadfast and unbowed.

“You know you can’t get a rise out of me,” Bull says easily, shrugging at Galani. “So I’m wondering why you’re trying. Or maybe you’re just bored, too.”

“Travel along the highway is much less exciting that some roads I’ve taken,” Galani agrees, smiling. Bull thinks he only means to bare his even, white teeth. “But I would know your character. The things that break such a behemoth.”

“Ah, Big Cousin,” Bull nods, amused. ”Knew you’d come around. We gonna have to arm-wrestle, next?” The man’s arms are covered in faded scars. From all that damn blood-magicking. 

“You are closest to her, aside from the Tevinter and the Seeker, praise the _gods_ she does not return with us,” Galani says simply.

“Don’t say that around her,” Bull warns, smirking. “She was Kimani’s favorite.”

“Seekers and Ben-Hassrath and the future Divine in her inner circle. I suppose I cannot expect much from the head of a Chantry operation.”

This. This was what gives them all pause, that this man is what rose from the ashes of a massacre. He has every damned right to hate the Chantry and yet here he is, in the midst of those sanctioned by the very authority. Bull would rather assume Galani is badass than dumb. Keeps him cautious.

“She didn’t exactly choose this, _maleficar_.” Bull is not angry, but he can’t help but think on the many times after Kimani had…decimated Corypheus that he’d catch her standing in Skyhold as though it was a dream she was waiting to be rid of. She had more than a few reasons to hate the Chantry, herself. Even before all this.

Galani’s smile expands, and his tongue briefly runs over his teeth. “You have a point, traitor.”

A rush of heat, unbidden and juvenile, lances Bull. It would take more to stutter his step, but no more to have him grind his teeth in exasperation. 

Oh, this man is the kind of man Bull likes to kill straight out, if only to temper the many small cuts he makes with his tongue. Catch him in the throat mid-insult. What the sordid joke die with him.

Instead he simply chuckles. There was a lot of anger beneath that pretty smile and impeccable diction. And distrust; Ben-Hassrath, even in Rivain, weren’t the most popular of people. Not to mention he, like Nashan and Kimani, was very much a _mage_ ; Bull has seen _saarebas_ , had seen _saarebas_ with their mouths freshly sewn shut before their masks ate their faces. He can’t expect a mage in love with their magehood to trust a qunari. Even a Tal-Vashoth.

 _Too recent a Tal-Vashoth_ , Bull thinks, sighing.

It was never lost on him why Kimani kept him at arm’s length for so long. He’d respected her for it, all the way up until they’d watched the dreadnought go up in flames and the arm fell away.

Bull gives respect where it’s due but it doesn’t mean he has to _like_ Galani. He simply has watch him until the man proves himself, one way or the other.

…

 

Kimani misses the moon.

Alone in her quarters Kimani sinks into her bath, eyes shut tight to keep her memories from fading in the light. The full moon, the quarter moon: ways to keep track her movements in the Fade, to keep safe, to mark on the secret calendar she had kept beneath her straw mattress in the Circle. That routine had become the basis of her life in a Circle which, even after twenty years, held an undercurrent of fear just for her. Her apprentices loved her, no doubt, but those she had never befriended, and those who held scars of old confrontations with her, forever eyed her warily and wished dark things upon her.

“Abomination on the brink,” Kimani sighs the old phrase as she soaks. If Marquesa became the ghost of Ostwick Circle, then Kimani was surely the ghoul everyone waited for with baited breath. 

She has not thought of Marquesa, her dear friend, since Adamant. A glimpse of her corrupted face flashes behind her eyes, the distorted twist of her voice splitting air. Kimani’s burden, well-carried. _I will always be sorry, Mara._

So to have found another like herself, one she could know in this realm and the other, in the midst of apocalypse, had been relief. She does not want to admit it, but Solas was _relief_. There was no painful longing as there was with her mother, no bit-back tears when the dream ended. Just…caution of course, because Solas was dangerous for all of his soft-spoke ways, but also ease.

Kimani opens her eyes when she sees Solas’ image in her mind, shivering. She captures the floating bath-bowl and pours water over her head once, twice, again and again until her hair is soaked through and she smells of Antivan olive oil and tallow soap. Despite the amass of fragrant soaps she’s accumulated and decorated her larger tub with, today she only wants feel bare, rough. To smell like earth. 

 Anyone who visits her chamber jokes about her two tubs; the clawed antique she sits in now, familiar and big enough for only her, and the monstrosity that has taken its place as the centerpiece of her wash chamber. The jars around the tub are colorful and smell of flowers and spice, and whatever else Bull brought to her.

This little tub shrinks her world, however; she stretches and her feet press against the end. She spreads her arms and hit solid wall. Kimani rubs soap into her hair, drags her rag over reddened skin, breathes in the steam.

On her nightstand sits a fresh molded brick of _nesomni_ , set to dry. It’s a waste; she has decided against using it, but that hadn’t stopped her from pulling mortar, pestle, and herbs out her closet. She’d been halfway into grinding the ingredients together before she remembered.

She plans to give it away.

 

 

“Cousin-Inquisitor has brought me a gift,” Galani says when she summons him to her chambers later. He wears a fresh tunic and clean trousers, his long braids leaving damp spots where they lay against his clothes.

“You know what it is?” Kimani nods to the _nesomni_ in his lap, watches with interest as he taps the brick and, finding it still soft, twists piece off to eat it. “I guess you do.”

“Of course I do,” Galani counters, eying her with a petty disdain. “Ignorance kills a great many less _mulki_ in Rivain, cousin-Inquisitor. Our _laraak_ take very good care of them so they aren’t consumed simply because they don’t know what they are. Many of them end up Seers themselves.”

Kimani commits the term _mulki_ to memory, tries to remember if there was ever a time that she knew it, tries to imagine a place where young _somniari_ -young _mages_ \- were cultivated so, outside of the Imperium.

“You’ve brought me here to answer questions,” Galani continues, stroking his braid. The dark, copper strands frizz as they dry. “But you must ask them. If you like, I will start by thanking you for taking care of Nashan.” This sounds sincere, something confident weighting his voice. “I feared for her when…well, when my Circle was Annulled. Spent the last couple years thinking she was killed ‘till your mother assured me otherwise.”

“She’s a good kid.” From behind her desk, Kimani pours wine into two goblets, nudges one to the edge of the wood. Galani takes it, murmuring a thanks in Rivaini. “My mother seems to be a middleman for the family, even so far away in Ostwick.”

“I supposed that’s some beauty in being _mulki_ , though you’d know better than I.” Galani smiles as he takes his goblet. “Besides, Asha is my favored aunt of the three sisters. You are very much like her. Very good with a threat, as well.” He falls silent as he pins her with a meaningful look. “I will endeavor against stoking your ire again. It was not intentional.”

“Blood magic is always intentional,” Kimani says sternly, “But I do not know it very well. If you use it against me again, I’ll keep my word.”

“As you well should. I’m just glad to be here,” Galani inclines his head reverently, sitting straight in his chair. “You know, I really do remember you from childhood. You had such shiny black hair in the same fluffy cloud, riddled with leaves and dirt from trying to fight me in the yard. But you were so little. And so cute.”

Old, ghost-like longing grips her as her blood rushes in her ears and the Well rattles in the back of her head. “You visited Ostwick often.”

“My mother is Antivan, her people boat-dwellers who make port in both the Marches, and various parts of Rivain. She and your mother adore each other. I knew you from a little brown nub in the crook of Asha’s arm. Mind you, I am seven years older…” He trails off as someone knocks at Kimani’s door. His grimace is fleeting, but it twists his perfect features like rent metal. “Your qunari, perhaps?”

“No. It’s open, Dorian,” she calls, standing as Dorian climbs her stair, grunting showily with books stacked in his arms though they both knew he could carry _her_ with little issue.

“I was tired of these books collecting dust when they should be on your desk,” Dorian declares, side-stepping Galani to dump the books atop field reports. “You owe me no small manner of lovely gifts for finding the lullaby myself and marking it was a fashionable page-holder,” he flicks the golden bookmark, smirking.

Kimani sighs in relief; She’d been neck-deep in the wrong section of Elvhen language tomes when Dorian had taken over the task, berating her in jest.

“You’re a life saver,” Kimani says happily,clapping him on the shoulder. “But then…why do I need all of _these_ books?”

“Because research is never only a single book of work. And that, I will not do for anything less than purse full of sovereigns.” Dorian chuckles, helping himself to wine. He takes a long draught before turning to Galani, leaning against the table to appraise the man. “Ser Lia.”

“He who bound me,” Galani replies, trailing his eyes over Dorian. “Ser Pavus. You are helping my cousin figure out the singing in her head?”

His words are casually given but hit their marks; Both she and Dorian freeze. Kimani begins calling the Litany of Andraste to memory, in case she feels the painful push of blood-magic in her mind.

 Galani looks between them, raising his eyebrows. “I was in your head for a moment, cousin. I heard it. Nashan says you don’t speak Elvhen. And then, you’re a dreamer…if I could have a sovereign for every account of _mulki_ plagued by a spirit’s song, I’d be very rich.”

 “A rather reckless use of the magic,” Dorian says unkindly, setting his goblet on the desk.

 “I am a rather reckless mage, ser Pavus. Anyway, the lullaby. About the senior dreamer coaching the novice?”

 “…About the mother coaxing her child to sleep.” Dorian is harsher now, frowning at Galani, who shakes his head.

 “ _No_ , ser. It is sung to the novices. Like a ceremonial lullaby, the first time they dream under supervision. It is like a…Harrowing, only less hateful.” Galani’s disgust laces his words, making them heavy.

 Outside, the winds rattle the balcony windows, sun drenching the patio in bright light and spilling into the room as the clouds shift. Dorian is silent; He folds his arms defiantly, waiting for Galani to continue. Perhaps, waiting for the man to reveal something he could contend with; between the pair of them, neither he nor Kimani knew much about Dalish or Rivaini custom in-practice.

 “Someone is guiding you,” Galani says after a time, draining his goblet. “Testing you, to some end. You must know them.”

 “Oh, dear,” Dorian mutters, turning sympathetic eyes on Kimani when she doesn’t refute it. “You might have told me, precious. Is it who it must be? There is surely no one else.”

 “It’s him,” Kimani says quietly. “It has been weeks.”

She lets Dorian gape as she tries to piece together what does not fit.

 Solas had precious little to do with the Well of Sorrows of his own volition. And it was the _Well_ that sang to her, that refused to answer her questions. _It does not make sense._

 Oh,” Galani gasps as they all turn to the Anchor, which suddenly begins glowing too-bright. “ _Mellammu_.”

 Kimani doesn’t get the chance to ask him about the word; the Anchor flares, and burns, and then she’s screaming as the pain lights her inside like a falling star burst to flames under her skin.

 The lullaby croons on softly, undeterred by her cries, like a determined whisper in her ear as her vision goes green.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rivaini Glossary:  
> Mellamu - means "bright" 
> 
> So with the lullaby, canonically it is a Dalish song sung to children to get them to sleep. I figure however, between the elvhen history of dreaming and the mixing of traditions that must happen between the friendly human-elf relations in Rivain, that the song would be adapted as part of mulki (dreamers/somniari) rituals. Dorian and Galani are disagreeing based on culture; both of them are right. In this instance, Galani is simply more right because I'm also headcanon-ing that more than a few servants of mythal were Rivaini-Dalish and at least one was somniari. So, the Well would have this knowledge.


	8. Falling In

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kimani gets some more insight on all the commotion in her head and makes a decision long in the works, for none of the reasons she'd intended to make it.

_Good Enough, Good Enough. You have to pay attention. There is little more than this. We would help._

The waters of the Well had been cool, almost viscous as she sunk beneath its surface in the Arbor Wilds. There had been little else but darkness and the sinking feeling that whatever was watching her stood but a hair’s breadth away.

“If you can help with this fucking Anchor I’d be grateful,” Kimani asks drily, looking into her marked hand to see the voided space pulsing weakly with a dull green. Nothing like what had blinded her in her quarters.

She’s certainly not dead. This feels too familiar.

 _We don’t have that knowledge._ The Well sounds almost sad. _But we know the gods._

“Do _they_ know how to help with the Anchor?” She thinks this is the Fade; it tastes like the Fade, feels like it between her fingers, but it slips away from her when she apprehends it. Too thin. The opposite of what she’s known that other realm to be.

Beneath her feet it feels like cool, running water slipping between her toes, but there is nothing underneath her feet. Crouching, she runs her fingers across what should be the floor, and feels a river’s slick reprieve; when she presses her hands to her face, they’re dry.

_You must focus._

“I’m trying to pay attention,” Kimani grumbles, dragging her hands down her cheeks just in case. “None of this makes sense.”

The last time the Anchor flared (exploded?) so, she’d been lifted into the air by the Fade itself, and it asked for her life. And then, it had given it back.

This is decidedly less dramatic. If there is any true fear left in her, it is deeply buried beneath the walls of resolve she’d built. Some crumble; most stand firm. The occasional frightening tremor makes it way to Kimani’s more vulnerable parts, but it is a heavy, slow weariness she feels most days. She is tired.

But she walks on in the darkness, because the Well mumbles incoherently in a mix of Elvhen and something else, the pitch of which ebbs with her tentative steps.

 _You sang to the dragon, t_ he Well says once Kimani walks in what must be a circle.

“I did…does our mistress want me?” She tries. “We never really talked about how eternal servitude works. I’d rather know now that once I’ve made some celestial mistake.”

That still didn’t feel real; even with her short-lived connection to Mythal’s guardian dragon, even with the Well being a very real voice in her head, that there where irons on her wrists that led to an old Elvhen God did not feel real. It also makes it that much easier to ignore. But she would not be surprised by her ominous new calling, either. She would rather know.

 The darkness settles like static over her skin, running up and down her so she shivers constantly.

Cracks in the wall. Little fears.

 _There is little left_ , the Well says, ignoring her question. _You have walked, felt, wondered. Where do you think you are?_

 _“_ Almost nowhere,” Kimani mutters, looking around in the dark. “Damn-near nothingness. I want this to be the Fade but this is not the Fade. This place belongs to you, and you don’t have knowledge of the Fade. Not like…not like me. Unless one of you is like me.”

 _Indeed,_ the Well confirms. _There are blank spaces in the Fade._

“…like on paper?”

_Like on paper. They are mistakes in the fabric. Stable mistakes. Protection, if you can find them. We think you will need it._

“How do I find them?” Kimani has stopped walking, lets the words echo in the nothingness. Curls her toes against nothing.

She can almost hear the Well shrug.

  _Between your toes. Against your skin. Before your eyes. Now that you know, you can find it._

Kimani looks once again around the darkness, down at her feet where water does not run, stretches her arms and feels nothing but the static.

She would not turn up her nose at a hiding place.

“Alright then,” she says, folding her arms. “Now, how do I find my way out?”

 _That is silly,_ the Well laughs, and the sound it is like bells echoing in a cave, sharp and soft and pealing, and Kimani realizes she has never heard it before. _Do you not remember how to pull?_

 

____

 

She looks dead, but he knows otherwise. Still, Bull settles into the sofa nearest her bed, arms crossed and head tilted back, to wait. Every so often he turns his head so he can see her, but her breathing wheezes and he can hear how not-dead she is just fine.

This doesn’t stop his muscles from tensing, or for him to find that he clenches his jaw unconsciously; by nightfall of the first full day of her sleep, he’s got a headache. But this is what he signed up for, the sporadic un-doing of a woman with the fade emblazoning her palm. Routine bouts of “Fuck!” and fear.

Bull remembers the Arbor Wilds after he was injured, how she’d go and do her duty like a leader should, but always woke sprawled across his arm, jolting awake to prod at his face, his chest, the tender skin around his wound.

That had not been when he realized, though. Well. It was when he realized that…this…had begun too early, too soon for any qunari truly healed by re-education; it had been the calm, sure way she’d simply asked for his hands, and danced magic across them.

So he’d sit on this damned couch for a _month,_ magic-less and useless, if only to hope she knew that he was close. As it was, it’s only been two days.

When Dorian returns to the room and finds him in the same spot, boots and belt and harness in neat little pile near his sofa, he gives him a sympathetic smile. That smile disappears when he looks further and finds the very quiet Galani on a straight-backed chair at the foot of Kimani’s bed. His hair is loose, deep frizzed waves of burnished red over his shoulders; Bull sees strands of silver where they’d been hidden in his braids.

“What are you doing?” Dorian asks, his voice sharp and authoritative as he comes to stand beside Galani. Bull knows what Dorian sees; scarred, dark hands wrapped around Kimani’s feet, thumbs pressing rhythmically into her calloused soles.  Bull turns so he can watch the men cut eyes at each other, though Galani has the gall to smile with his. It’s almost his trademark, the way teeth gleam before every word.

“She needs to remember her feet,” The maleficar says simply, tilting his head up at Dorian. “And I’m helping her.”

“We don’t even know where she’s gone.”

“Come,” Galani admonishes, looking up at Dorian, “A smart Altus like you, who’s been with her since that business in Redcliffe? You know exactly where she’s gone. What you all call the Anchor has pulled her into the Fade. It’s so much easier when you’re already part of it.”

Dorian frowns, casting a worried look at Bull before asking, “I beg your pardon?”

Galani shrugs. “Ask the Spirit. He’s the one that told me.”

Dorian looks around the room for Cole, expecting him to appear forthwith before calling him.

Bull sits up when the kid finally appears, the chilly aura of his entrance teasing goosebumps over Bull’s skin. The kid’s eyes pass over the men in the room, before lingering on Kimani. To Bull’s surprise, Cole smiles.

“You can’t reach in there and pull her out, kid?” Bull asks, grunting when Cole shakes his head apologetically.

“I’m not allowed,” he says. “But I can hear her now. Before, I couldn’t. Wherever she was, she’s moved on.”

That was…good. Magic still numbed his tongue to think of how it worked, how mages worked it. And the Fade was a memory he couldn’t get rid of. “Gimme some poetry, kid.”

Cole laughs a little; he’d liked when Bull started calling his streaming chatters such a nice word, even when the words that came were not so nice. Poetry was good; poetry helped. “She’s still too bright, The Iron Bull. But I _can_ hear her. Before, there was silence. Now, the sound that I know her by.”

Bull perks, “So she’s close?”

“In a way,” Cole agrees.

“You’re all fraught little wives,” comes a sleep-cracked voice from the room’s other sofa and only Dorian whirls, muttering a low _fasta vass_ under his breath. Nashan squints sleepily at the room, sighing when she sees Kimani has not moved.

“Good to know the whole damned family’s here,” Dorian says.

“She is our cousin,” Nashan and Galani reply in easy unison. Then, they laugh.

This. Bull will never get over this, the fact that one mage lay unconscious after her unstable magic mark exploded, and the other three mages and the spirit-boy are laughing.

Two days of silence from his _kadan_ , two days of Dorian’s frantic re-reading of a dozen tomes before he’d admitted, early this morning, that there was little even from the few scholars of the rifts and the notes Solas had left behind that could explain. He had thought of sending for the woman, Your Trainer, to come, but it would take weeks from whatever library she dwells in in Orlais.

Galani had been fairly calm, though a bit flustered at the Anchor itself. When Bull had made it to her chambers, he’d found Kimani in Galani’s arms and he was halfway between snatching both his and Dorian’s heads when Nashan had caught back up with him, clutching the back of his belt.

“She is alright, I think,” Galani had said softly, laying Kimani gently on her blanket. “Dreaming. I am no _somniari_ , but I’ve cared for a few. She should be alright. Unless she’s consumed. But that doesn’t seem to be a worry to ser Pavus.”

Now, he hums to himself as the room shifts, Dorian rounding the foot of the bed to sit on the other side, and Nashan standing to stretch noisily.

The kid was right; a bunch of wives.

Suddenly, Cole is next to him, thin and long and bent as he sinks into the sofa cushions.

“Leliana does not believe what you’ve told her,” He says quietly, looking at his feet. “Eyes, eyes, eyes on the maleficar and…oh, I know you know. Do not be angry, but you also want to talk, do you not, the Iron Bull?”

Bull growls, fleetingly pleased that Galani casts him a sharp glance over his shoulder. It is often easier to simply sit still; to play out his frustrations in the sparring ring would take him too far from her. He did not want to talk with anyone in this room. He wanted his boys, but they were on a low-mission for Leliana, breaking up some of the fighting the Divine’s ascension had sparked in the Hinterlands where the Inquisition still posted. Kimani would be pissed to know they'd gone without; she’d been trying to get back down there for months.

Cole looks at him, waiting for an answer the damned kid already knows.

Bull re-settles himself for the wait, and closes his eye.

 

___

 

Blank spaces in the Fade, indeed; Kimani walks freely in the land that she knows, at ease in its ever-warping scape as she picks her way between the domains of spirits and demons.

“Solas!” She yells, pulling doors from the mist and slipping through them, trying desperately to catch his scent. “Solas!”

He’d appeared like a flash of lightning before she blinked, but this was not the waking world; whatever she saw here was truly here. And Solas was playing with her.

“Solas, why are you toying with me? I need help. The Anchor pulled me into the Fade. Don’t you remember how the qunari lured me?” She tries, casting a barrier over herself when she sees demons in the distance, hears their snarls. She is angry and excited and, yes, frightened, and the Fade knows. Its demons lap at the remnants of her aura as it travels on the murky breeze.

“ _Fuck_ ,” Kimani hisses, stalking along. “I wanted this to be over. And when it wasn’t, I wanted to be calm. But I’m not, Solas.”

Silence, but she can feel his sharp eyes watching her.

“Speak to me at least!” She shouts, rounding on a demon that lurks too closely. It is rage, of course, hot and sloughing its own skin off like lava, wreathed in flame. Snarling, Kimani keeps distance, mindful of its now-bold kin. But they are weak, servants of something larger; she limns her limbs in fire, a mimic, and slips away from them as they extend black tongues to the air to taste what she leaves behind.

“You are loud,” comes Solas voice, finally: Kimani whirls on him, and he’s a dance of gold and green through fire and Fade. She does not douse herself. “You mustn’t search for me, you know; you search for me, I will simply disappear, then you’ll never find me.”

“Are you threatening me?” Kimani laughs incredulously, spitting.

“You’re the one screaming for me in the Fade,” Solas reminds her, his stance imperious with hands clasped easily behind his back. “As though I am the only _somniari_ you know. Tell me, how is your mother? The last time I remember, was…well was Adamant, that you’d met her on this plane. Why so long?”

Kimani freezes. “You know why.”

“It hinders you, this protective compulsion,” Solas says, smiling kindly. “It has always hindered you, because it is a fear; the demon you know haunts you, but you so valiantly ignore it. Rage is a better opponent, no? You must simply be the brighter flame.”

She has no words, sputtering. And Solas laughs.

“I have been searching for ways to remove the Anchor from you, my young friend. Ways open to those like us. But I am afraid my search is in vain,” He finishes, stepping nearer. “But I think I can help you to manage it.”

His hand is comforting on her shoulder, but it prickles like a blanket of darkness. Kimani shrinks back.

“You have always been strange in the Fade,” She murmurs, rubbing where he’d touched her. “How do you think you can help me?”

“Your rage is like the sea, I fear,” Solas begins, his gaze distant as he appraises her, “But perhaps we can catch hold of your fear. You must be patient, young one.” Solas reaches out to touch her again, presumably to wake her, and Kimani brushes his hand away, raising her arms at her sides.

“ _My_ dream,” She growls, and pulls.

 

…

 

The third day has Leliana like a silent serpent at Kimani’s door.

“They’re working on it,” Bull says, filling the doorway and washing the small woman in shadow. “They’re saying she’s closer to waking; the Rivaini can tell. He’s worked with mages like the Inquisitor before. And Dorian agrees.”

This is the truth, but Bull does not fault the Nightingale for the distrustful twist of her rosebud mouth. Bull knows she errs often on the side of mages, but she has heard, somehow, of the blood-magic performed on Kimani and it sours her to Galani. She tries to look around Bull’s massive frame and fails; her sigh is little more than a slight twitch of her hooded shoulders.

Bull sees her worry, easy as day, and decides to focus on that rather than the elaborate game she has tried to play around him, sending her spies to glean information she could simply have for the asking if she could only stomach asking  _him_.

“She’s going to be alright,” He assures her. “You knew something like this might happen. The Breach is closed, the rifts aren’t spitting shit out anymore, but that hand…Solas definitely fucked us in leaving nothing but chicken-scratch notes and a wall painting.”

At this, Leliana chuckles. “We agree on what’s important at least, Iron Bull.”

“ ‘S how we work, Leliana, when we do. I won’t knock it,” He gives a half-smile when she inclines her head.

“Indeed. So I suspect I won’t be getting past you this afternoon.”

“Don’t think so.”

“Fine,” Leliana hums warmly. “Have your way. If this persists much longer, make no mistake that I will have mine.” She calls the last bit as she turns her back on him, confident as she departs.

Bull feels a stir of excitement in his belly, different from the placid acceptance at her attacks he’d previously felt, and chalks it up to worry fucking with his emotions. He doesn’t know what to feel with Kimani lain up in bed like a corpse.

“Looking forward to it,” He calls after Leliana, but she is gone. They should call her “ghost,” the way she lingers long after she’s gone. Maybe that’s why she and Kimani worked so well as partners, even friends; they were similar in twisty ways.

Bull stands a little longer in the doorway, thinking. What would they do, if she did not come back? It was beyond any of them, even Galani’s determined foot rubs. Dorian had read of instances where elvhen dreamers stayed sleep for years, fed just enough to keep them from death, until…

 _Too much_ , Bull thinks, rolling his shoulders with a groan. She wouldn’t be sleep for years, much less a week. Bull knew jack shit about _somniari_ but Kimani was strong in a frightening, quiet way. Gatt had seen it, and Bull had seen it in the moments before rifts surrendered to the Anchor. He’d seen it at Adamant. He didn’t know magic but he knew when a warrior knew their shit. _She’ll be back soon. She’ll probably have a fucking plan._

Without preamble, and like magic, a warm hand slides up his back, rubbing circles low between his massive shoulder blades, and Bull smiles to himself, sighing. He’s answered by a low, weak tongue-clicking as blunt nails scrape his skin.

“Took you long enough,” he rumbles, turning to face a flushed, bleary-eyed Kimani. She scratches at her fuzzy hair, smiling her lopsided, morning smile when he runs his fingers over her skin, turning her wrists and peering at her hands, laying the back of his hand on her forehead. Hot. “How do you feel?”

“Like shit,” she croaks, coughing weakly. “Warmed over. I’ve got something in my throat. My feet feel nice, though. Oh…Big’un…,” She groans as he lifts her wordlessly into his arms. Hot all over. But damn it, at least she doesn’t look dead anymore.

Kimani mashes her face in what _could_ be a kiss against his cheek before resting on his shoulder, her arms loose around his neck. She feels weak, her legs dangle against him, her body shakes. She smells _weird_ , like a Fade Rift mixed with burnt carcass, like all that pretty hair’s been singed, but he kisses her shoulder arm anyway.

In his head. Under his skin. But had he ever really tried to get her out?

Over her shoulder, Bull sees the grim faces of three mages, and holds her tighter.

“I’m alright,” she mumbles into his skin, kicking her legs against him. “I’m also _really_ fucking hungry. You all were just going to let me starve if I didn’t come back, huh? Useless bunch of nugs. I should be sipping hot chocolate and eating cheese. There should be bread. _Spirits_.”

 

…

Four pairs of eyes watch her eat jam and cheese and dark, hard bread and Kimani lets them so that she may finish her meal in silence, propped up in her bed as Bull had commanded when she’d nearly tripped over nothing.

Her body feels hollowed out; she eats half her loaf and scrapes the last of the jam from its jar and relishes in its sugar-sweetness, in the fleeting bliss of it before she must re-mantle and meet the 

She’s tired; her bones ache. But she will not go back to sleep so soon. 

“Solas thinks he’s found a way to help me manage the Anchor on my own," she says, her voice soft but clear enough that no one mishears her. When Bull and Dorian start, she raises her hand to still them. “But, as three of us in this room know, Solas is, at best, to only be partially trusted.”

Both Galani and Nashan tilt their heads at her, and Kimani swallows the sudden, unnamed pang in her gut at their similarity. She looks quickly back to Bull and Dorian. “There is also… The Well of Sorrows is speaking to me again. Directly.” She says this nearly exclusively to Dorian, who darkens with a swift downturn of mouth. “Not just the singing. It is difficult to explain.” Now she turns to Bull, who hides any emotion behind the more familiar stone wall expression, turning his features into the gates and battlements of a fortress. “You remember how I told you that the Fade is like many rooms stacked atop each other, that I can access any and all with the doors I find, or those I make?”

He gives her his frustration in his silence, head nodding slowly.

Satisfied, she nods back. “The Well is showing me secret places in the Fade. Dark places that I did not remember, but I do. I do now. Because Solas has taken me to them.”

Had. Once. To save her from herself. To save Gatt from becoming another ghost she kept locked away.

Dorian closes his eyes, resigned to his own irritation.

“The Well of Sorrows?” Galani asks, his deep voice gentle as he strokes the ends of his hair. He’d been the first face she saw when she woke. He’d been murmuring something, but his eyes had lit with a genuine happiness when she focused on him, telling him to shut up. _At once_ , he’d laughed, and Kimani had nearly smiled back. "What is this?'

"I will explain it to you. And Nashan," Dorian says before Kimani can answer, his own brown skin darkening with flush.

"Indeed. And cousin, you have walked the Fade with this Solas before?"

“Yes. Many times," Kimani nods, "He meant to be my teacher. He spent much of his life dreaming deep into dead memories, watching history in what the ghosts brought to the other realm. He romanced me with it, at first,” She admits, swallowing the last of her meal before setting her tray on the nightstand. “But there’s something wrong with him. I don’t know what it is…I tried to keep my distance and failed. It was so lonely.”

The last sentence slips out before she can catch it, and she lowers her eyes.

“Your mother..?”

Kimani shakes her head.“Sparingly, until I brought danger to her door. A Nightmare lord. The last thing I wanted was to be the reason she died before I ever saw her again. And ever since, I kept my walks in the Fade to when I joined Solas. I have eaten more _nesomni_ in the last year than I have anything else,” She laughs, squeezing her hands in her lap.

“We’re having this chat so that you understand _why_ we’re going to Ostwick sooner than planned. Whatever is happening to me is bound to my dreaming, perhaps simply because I _can_ dream. I cannot have my only partnership in the Fade be Solas, regardless of his intentions, and I cannot…I cannot see my mother in the Fade again before I see her in the flesh. I _will not_.”

The room is silent as Kimani runs her hands over dry, tangled hair, sighing herself into her pillows.

“My mother was my first teacher, and I reckon she’s far stronger than me. If there were another _somni_ -”

“Don’t dare,” Dorian says sharply, standing. “You want to go home. You _need_ to go home. And so that is what we shall do, even if there were twenty _somniari_ in the courtyard this moment.”

Bull nods again, quiet affirmation.

Glad for compliance, Kimani sits back in the pillows, smiling softly. It would not be so easy to calm her council. Especially not with what she’s been told about the violence brewing behind Vivienne’s ascension. Already. In _Ferelden_.

But, she is decided. 

Nashan smiles, clapping quietly. “We might make it in time to catch the _aabahu_.”

“Ah, gods,” Galani sighs, and something in his voice is weak, scraping an edge. Kimani looks to him, questioning.

Galani shrugs, but he suddenly looks very old, the lines on his face decades deeper than he should know. “That means _all_ of our mothers will be there.”

He smiles then, suddenly, teeth gleaming, and Kimani understands.


	9. Part 2: Mirror Work (Configuration)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kimani gets on the road to Ostwick, tosses around the word "home" until it sticks the way it should, and avoids a question from Galani in the most heroic fashion. 
> 
> Family feels, we're coming for you.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the start of part 2, called "Mirror Work."   
> Dealing with self reflection and re-actualization all up in dis bih.   
> The chapter itself is still called "Configuration"

Time never seems to slow down.

After Corypheus, Kimani had expected for time to stop. Somewhere latent was the knowledge that the sheer weight of shock to her system was bound to, finally, ram her to the marrow; it would certainly hit her hard enough to stop time. She’d waited for it until the Fade’s reverb seeped from her core, until the headaches that wracked her upon surviving Corypheus were less than memory. Until the seasons changed and the heavy sadness that draped her lifted like a breeze-caught feather.

It never came. Time never stopped. She could not forget her feet.

The plan has always been to find the time to visit the Free Marches, to go back. Kimani can scarcely remember the Ostwick of her childhood save for her mother’s wall of trinkets: gifts from admirers of her beauty, her voice. Asha had been taken in at Ostwick’s opera house when she was nineteen, as a soprano’s understudy. Kimani doesn’t remember when exactly her parents met, but surely her father was one of the better admirers. She’s certain his gifts shone with more than just the glint of metal and precious stones. Soren Trevelyan—a young Bann, though some years older than Asha—was a determined sort.

Kimani remembers her mother saying this. She was fifteen and bitter, and they were practicing weaving dreams together. And Asha had said this thing, that Soren was “a determined sort.” And Kimani laughed so hard that the dream shattered.

 _He was so determined that he simply let them take me away_ , she’d wanted to say, but it was a useless, dangerous anger and she knew it. Even then, she wrangled rage into a flame she could hold. If it didn’t help, it didn’t deserve the space to grow; it is still a challenge for Kimani to see the oil-slick trails of fire light in her mind’s eye, hungry and ready, and will them down to smoke.

It is no hard guess to know what voice her Rage Demon took on during her Harrowing.

She’d thought, with the triumph of a saved world behind her, that nothing but that particular echo could shake her. Adamant still sometimes feels like yesterday and now here she is, packing another bag for a trip to the place where she was born. To smell the roses that perfume the letters from her mother. To hold the hands that carved the sigils into the necklace pressed like a second skin against her chest.

Her advisers give little resistance. They plan on a schedule of correspondence between the travelers and Skyhold as well as between agents and camps still stationed in Ferelden. They talk of safety; Like spilled ink, the echo of Vivienne’s ascension blackens what little peace has settled in the Hinterlands and beyond.

“There are, of course, rumors of your own call for battle against templars,” Josephine says, her face a collage of apology and bewilderment. “And talk of the true hierarchy of magic, if the Inquisitor could be felled by a young Templar.”

“Let them talk as though they’ve forgotten exactly what a templar is,” Kimani sighs, “They can tear me down. I don’t give a shit. The whole point,” Here she cuts a look at Leliana, who gazes evenly back, “was to keep Vivienne safe. Body and image. The same of myself is already fucked,” she shrugs. “There are _still_ people who think I’m some well-mannered abomination.”

“And those are the people you may encounter on your journey. The road to the Marches is a different beast than that to Orlais.”

“And Ferelden is finally going the way of the Empire’s snake-tongued threats towards our people in the Dales. I read the missives. And I certainly know what lies on this road to the sea.” Kimani smiles without mirth, raising her hand to silence the apology pressing against Josephine’s teeth. “You all look out for me where you can, I swear I’ll not kill anyone that doesn’t explicitly ask for it with a weapon to my throat. All I want to do is go to the Marches and come back home. If that means no Hinterlands, no dabbling, I think I can manage. Nothing new.”

Home. The word is as heavy and bitter-sweet as some of the more expensive chocolates Dorian has procured for her. She rolls it around in her mouth like a piece of hard candy; grinding her teeth against it produces little beyond a few shavings that dissolve too quickly against her tongue. Useless. And yet, she’d used it definitively. Here is home, there is not.

Solas’ rotunda has yet to be re-purposed; Kimani takes liberty here after meetings, interrupted only by crumpled-paper notes sent down by Dorian with strings of Tevene she must recite back to him. One is not in Tevene, and makes her laugh until her belly aches:

_The elder of your cousins is insufferable. I must admit to you, my dearest friend and his unfortunate relative, that I hate him and endeavor to erect ghouls in the library to keep him away._

This, coming not an hour after Galani had passed through the rotunda muttering about how her “Tevinter associate” was a damned librarian gatekeeper who only wanted to pleasure himself through the reading Ancient Tevene aloud in his corner. Some of this had been in Rivaini; Kimani had sat at Solas’ old table with her face in her hands, shaking with a laughter stuck in her chest.

She still can’t spend much time out by Cassandra’s abandoned practice dummies. Both the stables and Master Dennett are a bit different without Thom’s presence in the rafters. The ramparts are still her morning refuge; she and Bull still walk them together and apart. The cooks still let her snoop about the kitchens when they’re in a good mood.

Home. The word is heavy and bitter-sweet. It does not belong to the Marches.

Before she realizes, Kimani is mounted and waving good-bye to Skyhold. Her horse is the calm mount she’d started out on, named Harrish. Kost is left honking in his pen, too loud to lend any discretion to their journey. Kimani has never been one over-fond of horses, but even Harrish feels like home.

And the road, certainly; the freedom of the unknown path winding away, despite the danger and misfortune she knows too well, is home.

“I _want_ to say we’re going home,” Nashan begins as she brings her mount beside Kimani's, “But I don’t think the name suits for any of our purposes. It’s weird. I mean, you were born there. My ma lives with your ma; I lived there but I ran from it. Galani never did. It won’t do to call this a homecoming, will it?”

Kimani is unsure if any word would truly do; she shrugs. “Doesn’t make it any less special, little love. Just makes it a very important visit. For me. I’m surely visiting, but you and Galani can make home there.”

“Is that…Do you want me to stay there? Are you returning me?” Nashan asks abruptly, big eyes burning an intent gaze into the side of Kimani’s face until she turns to her.

Nashan is beautiful; her features are prominent and even, her skin dark umber, her hair a black fall of sheening locs. Her smile could light the blackest corner of the Fade. Her fire was nearly as hot as Kimani’s. And she was well-loved in Skyhold; from Dorian and Sera to the Chargers, to Varric and master Dennett. Nashan had blossomed in that love, had taken what was given to her and bound it to herself like a hundred precious pieces of jewelry.

Kimani’s Skyhold would wilt a bit if Nashan were to leave.

“You set out to find Galani. And you were commanded to Skyhold. Both of those deeds are done,” she says carefully, watching Nashan sober as Kimani formulates her non-answer. “There will always be a place for you in Skyhold, little love. But I don’t hold any claim on you. Your mother might feel differently.”

Nashan looks as though she’s forgotten her own mother for a moment. “I am of age, I can go where I wish.”

“And if you wish to stay in Skyhold, I’d gladly have you.”

The only evidence of Nashan’s pleasure is a small smile. “And Gala?”

“Gala is old,” Galani calls kindly over his shoulder. “And technically dead. And I suppose illegal. I’m sure there are those that wish claim on me, but certainly not my poor mother. Who is going to kill me, at best, when she sees me again. No such thing as home for a twice-dead man.” His chuckle is husky and light until something in his own words amuses him further, and his shoulders shake in silent laughter.

The Annulment of Dairsmuid goes unmentioned directly unless Galani speaks it himself, but it weighs every silence he draws, every look. It darkens the scabs over his arms and hands from blood magic, which was used more in his self-made exile. It bitters his smiles. Bull calls him strong when the mage is entirely out of ear-shot, and scowls in his presence. Galani is indeed an unsteady presence.

“Anomalies have places in Skyhold, obviously,” Kimani calls to him, “though our jobs in the keep are…varied, to say the least. Twice dead men could live there.”

Bull nearly rounds on her with how quick he shoots a look behind him, unfettered dissent in one small eye. Kimani acknowledges him, then ignores him, relieved when he doesn’t open his mouth.

At this, Galani pauses, peddling back to look up at Kimani on her mount.

“I wasn’t asking for a place in your Inquisition, cousin,” He says evenly, the sculpture of his face frozen stone. “Though I appreciate your hospitality thus far. You must understand why.”

There it is; the tilt that keeps them on edge. Kimani nods. “I understand. I meant no disrespect.”

“I know,” Galani sighs. There is a softness in his stare as he metes out silence, keeping pace with Harrish. “Your lover said something to me as we left Orlais. That you did not choose your place. Now that I remember it, it was more his tone of voice than the actual words I liked. Very forceful. But I’d ask you, if you were rid of the necessity of your station this moment, would you remain?”

“I…” Kimani realizes they’ve stopped and he’s taken her marked hand in his, examining it as though he could see the Anchor through leather glove and thick, black bandage wrapped beneath it. Bull looks to her again, this time questioning and moving on when she shakes her head, hustling the rest of their caravan slowly onward.

“An entire life in a dismal Circle,” Galani continues, “and the rest of your life here. Saving the world, as it were-”

“I don’t know what I’ll do,” Kimani interrupts him, pulling her hand away. Her cheeks burns hot with a confusion she hasn’t fathomed since they’d pulled her from the Temple’s rubble and without thinking further, she nudges Harrish into a trot.

“ _Coward coward coward_ ,” She mumbles to herself, bi-passing her caravan to ride ahead. “You are indeed a coward, Kimani Patris.”

But she is a coward that can choose when and where to flee, and it is liberating. Somewhat; time moves ever-on. Galani’s question would inevitably return further down the road, because time will not stop. She cannot forget her feet.

She would have to use them, stand on them when the time came, one way or another.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know what you think!


	10. We Choose

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On the road to Ostwick: Kimani talks about her mom. Bull is a bit of a jerk. Thunderstorms!

“So what, are you planning on telling us about the lady we’re going to meet?” Sera asks on the third day of their journey, her hands busy with the strap of her quiver as she ambles along the edge of the highway, one foot on the paved road and the other in the dirt. Blackwall’s departure had left her somewhat silent, so Kimani was pleased when she requested to be part of their “little trip to ‘cross the water.”

“You want to know about my mother?” Kimani asks, patting the side of her mount’s neck as she walks beside him. “She is a mage like me, but stronger.”

“Right,” Sera says, reaching for an arrow to examine. Her thin, callous fingers run over its tip delicately, searching for imperfections Kimani would never be privy to. “But what _kind_ of lady is she? You can’t just waltz to her house and go ‘yes, need some help with the elvhen fuck in my head.’ Or can you? She’ll just be alright with the lot of us…descending upon her?”

“She knows we’re coming.” Kimani blushes as Sera fixes her with a baleful stare. The rogue snorts, jabbing her with the butt of her arrow.

“You gonna tell us about her or not?”

There’s no dire rush to Ostwick and the way is slow, easy. That was the way of the Imperial Highway when one’s entire company looked as though they knew violence, even with the mages’ staves strapped and wrapped together across the back of Dorian’s mount like a bundle of sticks.  The only one of them begrudgingly bereft is Dorian, who turns every so often to ensure that they haven’t, as he says, “fallen off my valiant steed’s ass.”

Now he turns, but only to see how Kimani will respond. After a moment, she realizes all of her companions wait. Even Bull, somber as he is with his eyes to the trees, waits to hear.

“Well you know she made me this necklace,” Kimani begins, fingering her jawbone. “And that she’s Rivaini. And my father’s mistress.”

“Still?”

“Yes. They love each other. Unless,” she catches Nashan’s eye, “something has changed.”

Her cousin shakes her head, jewelry tinkling as her locs sway. “Auntie is Bann Soren’s official mistress. Has been as long as I’ve known them. They go to the theater, he comes to market. He gave me a pretty ring for my birthday.”

This knowledge is knew; Kimani lets it seep into her archaic understanding of her parent’s relationship. Public displays of affection. Official claim. Her shock shows on her face, making pale-honeyed eyes go wide.

That was something.

“Oh…his wife must not enjoy that. I remember her never being cruel, but never truly being kind, either.”

“Amelie tends to her affairs and smiles at us in the streets,” Nashan shrugs. “The daughter, Celene, she will say hello.”

Kimani brightens as a memory floods her; she sees the cropped frizzy red hair, clear gray eyes in a porcelain face. Fat cheeks, full lips and even teeth, fingers always smelling inexplicably of ashes. “Yes. Celene. She was the kind one. The son…Andre…was kind enough. But I wouldn’t fault them if they weren’t. None of us chose our predicament. _Spirits_ , I remember,” Kimani laughs as another memory of loud voices echoes in her ears, “Mama once said that she and father hadn’t had a choice in the matter, either. That neither wanted love, but love is what they got. And what they cherish most, I think, as they’ve remained together for so long. But it is not the same lack of choice as three children faced with their parent’s decisions.”

The group falls silent, and Kimani realizes she’s warm in the face, her hand tight around her reigns. Even the horse eyes her, snuffling as they walk along. Skinner, returned from tracking ahead, stands quietly by Bull’s side, one thin eyebrow raised in amused confusion.

“Needless to say,” she wills her voice even, “My mother is a romantic. Though, there was a…separation after I was taken to the Circle. But it did not last.”

“That can’t have gone over well with the reason they separated,” Bull says pointedly before turning back to the trees. His voice is gruff with the weight of his concentration, his calculations; Kimani’s surprised he’s paying enough attention to lay such an artful, demanding, line.

Kimani does not shirk from it, much as she would like to. “I was nine. And at the time I didn’t know of a separation.”

“And when you did?” He’s spitfire, no hesitation, eyes to the woods. She could always not answer. He could've not asked.

“When I did,” Kimani says, suppressing her sigh, “It was years too late to be upset about it. I was harrowed and my demon made to heel. I wasn’t going to unleash it over something that had happened years before. This is the control you like so much.”

The sky rumbles a low, warning growl of thunder. Nashan, Galani, and Dorian turn to her, then look beyond her when Kimani jerks her thumb at Skinner.

“There’s a clearing not too far,” the elf says. “Nice cover. We should make it before we’re soaked.”

Secretly, Kimani hopes the rain beats them to the campsite; she breathes deep the aroma of incoming rain and imagines a storm soaking her to the bone. Some kind of cleansing, the way stories promised. She doesn’t even know what she wants to wash away; everything that ails her is embedded firmly in her skin.

“You said your parents cherish their love the most.”

Bull has the nerve not to look at her when she cuts her eyes at him. He scratches aimlessly at his chest.

“Yes."

Nashan catches on; her step stumbles, Galani’s hand on her shoulder as she turns to glare at Bull. “Kimani.”

Galani says something quiet, but Nashan shakes her head.

“No, it’s…you all agreed to come with me,” Kimani raises a hand to her cousin. “And we go in hopes of help, but you’re all also walking into a reunion. Twenty-three years in the making. A reunion that, just two years ago I never thought would actually happen. And this is the truth of it. I am a little less real to them than any of us would like to believe. A little less real to both of them,” Kimani says this directly to Nashan, whose sad face only sinks further.

Bull’s silence is expected. The sad look Dorian offers is expected. Sera simply looks away. Galani offers her nothing, for which she’s unexpectedly grateful.

“It’s not a bad thing,” she offers them. “It is the way our lives have worked. How could I be real when I was gone? I’m lucky to know my mother at all. I still love her; I _choose_ to love her. And I must appreciate the little my father _did_ do for me. There are so many different ways of love.” These last words are like a chant, a way she’d kept herself. A way that makes it all alright. Years separate the last time she’s said them aloud and now, but they settle just as well on her tongue.

 The sky grays from one breath to the next. The smell of coming rain thickens the air. Bull’s mouth remains shut. Thunder echoes, a blessing.

Satisfied that no one else would to break the silence, Kimani turns her attention to the irregular spatter of flowers along the road and tries to still the buzz in her chest. Upon closer inspection, the flowers out to be bright mushrooms. Poisonous and pretty; they line the road for the rest of their trek to shelter from the coming rain, and Kimani counts them as reprieve.

 

 

 _Sorry_ , Bull thinks later, when they’ve set up camp and Kimani still occupies herself with anything but speaking. First, it had been the roadside mushrooms. Then, the coils of rope as they pitched tents. Now, she sits with her pallet on the far side of their tent, sifting through the bag she’d packed and re-packed in Skyhold thrice before confirming it was perfect.

It is his fault. He understood that Kimani’s father was something of a ghost-figure, something not really real. He hadn’t anticipated that the mother was something similar. Hadn’t even crossed his mind. Nor did he ever suspect that his _kadan_ could look at herself and see a figment of someone’s imagination. An afterthought. Maybe he wouldn’t have asked, wouldn’t have been so damned unfeeling about it, if he’d taken the time to suss it out beforehand.

His fault. Too far in his own head. But the road is too quiet, and he doesn’t quite trust it.

Once Kimani sleeps Bull lay an extra blanket over her and goes out to sit with Skinner, to share her pipe until the rains come. Everyone always thinks Bull plays favorites and yes, Krem is his guy, but Skinner is more like him. She sees a lot and plays her cards and _really_ likes to kill things. Hard around the edges. Hard near the center.

“You’ve been quiet, chief,” is all she says, re-filling her pipe when they finish the first round. Bull knows she means for more than this trip. And he knows she doesn’t expect him to respond.

So, he doesn’t. He smokes, and thinks about the many different ways of love.

...

 

It storms for three days straight, and it fills Kimani’s heart like a reservoir of relief.

Kimani jogs through the trees, scrambling to make it back to camp before the rain picks up again, shrieking in heady glee with a sharp thunderclap that echoes and nearly knocks her over from sound alone. Her feet slap mud and puddles, and she knows she’s filthy from the knee down; her hair is heavy and stuck to her face, soggy white tufts blinding her, clinging to her cheeks and nose, heavy and cold curled around her neck.

Storms are harmonious, holy and demanding; it becomes a second skin, it consumes the world around it, it promises life in exchange for momentary tyranny. Kimani shouts with the next thunderclap, startling their mounts and she barrels past. Their tents are slick and shaking with rain and wind, soft lights illuminating them like underwater lamps, warping the shadows inside.

 Sera sits beneath a thick-leafed tree and shouts back at her when she draws near, making a delighted face when Kimani leaps over a log, yelling something incoherent after her.

It is exquisite to the end; Kimani hops around in a circle, eyes shut against the torrent as it ices her body, before she takes the large, gray hand appearing out from between her tent flaps to pull her in.

“ _Imekari_ ,” Bull chastises, chuckling when she repeats the word back at him, her voice dropped too deep. “I swear the only reason you get qunlat is ‘cus of the little tongue rolls. Everything else sounds like an old, angry Marcher man.”

“Maybe I am,” Kimani pants, shivering as the cold seeps into her skin. For a moment she feels frozen and likes it, lets her teeth chatter.

“Full disclosure,” Bull says, “Your nipples are _very_ visible.”

“They’re about to be clear as day in a moment,” Kimani huffs, climbing to her feet once she catches her breath. She strips the soaking clothes away, rubbing briskly over her skin with warmed hands to thaw herself before the cold becomes an enemy. 

Bull sits on the ground with his maul in his lap, cleaning grease in a tin can balanced on one knee. His rag covers this other speckled with black fingerprints as he runs his fingers over the blade. Ben-Hassrath use whatever tool suits the job, but Bull is fond of his maul. Perhaps it is because he is Tal-Vashoth, but he’s had that maul since the first time they met, and she can only assume for some time before.

He’s frowning at it, and that frown deepens with the next overwrought clap of thunder and its subsequent, echoing _boom_. It sends a shiver through both of them; she sees the way his fingers twitch.

“You don’t like the thunder,” she observes, watching him crack his knuckles with what would be nerves in anyone else.

“Not when it’s gone on for three damned days, no. It’s disorienting. Sound is all messed up, can’t see.”

“And staying in the tent makes that better?”

Bull makes a face. “I’ve got a good eye, but I’m not as good as Skinner or Sera. And I’ve got damned good ears, but that rain…If something comes, I can get out of the tent and swinging fast enough.”

The threat of attack was never really gone; Kimani knows this, as they all do, too well. “If it helps, I didn’t see anything on my way in.”

“You wouldn’t have seen anything unless it tripped you up,” Bull teases, “I heard you out there; You like the storm, like it’s your friend. _Asaraanda_ ,” He says with an indulgent smile. “I’ve fought in too many to be fond of these heavy ones. A light rain’s alright, though. Even nice.”

“When I left my Circle, it rained for days,” Kimani says as she pulls on a dry set of clothes. “It was the first time I’d been out in rain like that in twenty years. And I ran, let that storm put distance between me and the templars.” Spirits, she’d been so afraid. But she could see well enough in the rain. She’d water-proofed her cloak. And she had her hands, bereft of her staff, at the ready. And she’d ran, ran, ran.

There’s more to the story, as Bull well knows.

“Washed it all away,” He says, shifting as she sits next to him.

“Washed some of it away. Made room for something else. It’s not like that for you.”

Bull shakes his head. “Not this,” He says, gesturing outside. “This is some bullshit. You done…frolicking, then?”

Kimani nods. “Needed to release. Needed to _run_. I go to sleep all wound up, that’s no good. I’m already dealing with enough, don't need to give myself nightmares.”

Nothing new there. She holds the Well and the Anchor as she has for months. Her body is accustom to things it shouldn’t be. She can’t remember how it feels to feel any other way. The Anchor would come upon its next birthday soon enough. And the Well babbled like a soft-spoken infant, not even a year old, in the back of her mind. Dormant since dragging her into the Fade for days but if anything on this trip kept her on edge, it’s the wait for both afflictions to flare again.

“You know,” Bull bumps into her gently, his voice soft as he pulls her from her thoughts, “The other day. I was…I shouldn’t have asked so much about your parents. You were done and I knew it. But I pressed. With everyone listening, and I could say a lot about reasons why but I’m finding I’d rather just apologize. You zoned out a bit afterward and I didn’t like it. That I did that to you.”

Something new there; it warms her from her toes to the top of her head, wets her eyes faster than she can will the tears away. It surprises her, the way she suddenly wants to cry. “Thank you,” Kimani murmurs, pressing a kiss to his arm. “It’s good, though. To have said it. To expel some of it before I get there. If I’m honest, I’m glad we go with more purpose than this reunion.”

“I know,” Bull hums, wrapping his arm securely around her. “Structure. Something safe to fall back on when it gets to be too much.”

“Yeah.” Kimani swipes beneath her eyes.

“I don’t know about parents but I know about love. A little bit, since there’s _so many different kinds_.” He growls this into her hair so she giggles at his parroting. “I love the Chargers. I love you. It’s like loyalty. You do what you need to do for the team. I…loved the Qun. Different kind of love,” he adds quickly when Kimani raises her brows at him. “All of them are. But at the end of the day, whether I’m fucking them or fighting with them or following them, or all three, it’s a base of loyalty. Trust. And you build up.”

"Ah."

“So, you and your mother will fall into place, whether it’s on this trip or not. Whether it’s how you want, or not. There’s a reason you’ve managed so long like this. That’s a discipline, and it’ll carry you to an end.”

There’s a lot Bull isn’t saying. Like when the love stops. When what you loved isn’t what you love anymore. But Kimani senses that he doesn’t really want to talk about the Qun. And she has to let him come to it in his own time.

Now, she wraps her arms around his waist and rumbles with the next roll of thunder. _Boom._

“Heh,” Bull chuckles, setting his maul aside. “This…also means I’m meeting your mother. _I_ _’m_ meeting your _mother_. I’ve heard about that.”

Kimani groans into his skin. “Have you, now?”

“Yep. _Introductions._ Unless we’re just going with the This is my Mercenary Captain-slash-Bodyguard, The Iron Bull, who I definitely don’t fuck on the regular. Or let eat my chocolate, or roll around in my sheets even when I’m not there.”

“Shut up.”

“I’m just saying, I’d be fine with that. Mama, this is the man I _don_ _’t_ let put his considerable-”

“ _No_ ,” Kimani wails, covering his mouth. “Shush. _None_ of that.”

Bull grins behind her hand, then kisses it noisily until she withdraws. Strong hands snatch her up before she can scramble away, gentling as he leans into her to murmur a soft _kiss me, kadan,_ his eye fixed on her mouth.

 _“Kiss me, kadan,”_ Kimani echoes, slowly molding the words onto his lips. She chants it as she wraps herself around him, sinking into his warmth and acceding to his request again, and again and again.

…

 

In the morning, the sun shines thrice as bright to make up for its absence, and everyone emerges from their tents squinting in the light. The ground squishes out a sloppy tune beneath so many feet. Everything smells like mud and heat.

Seeing Bull and Kimani walking hand-in-hand, Nashan cheerfully sings their company back onto the road, her voice soft and chipper, as they try to regain lost ground.


	11. The Thick of Memory

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As the squad arrives in Ostwick, everything reminds Kimani of everything past.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW for reference of past drug use. If anyone's curious about Kimani's time as an apostate, the short, two-oneshots fic "Walk Light" goes into a bit more detail. Click the "Verity" series link and it should be the first listed.

The first time Kimani lands in Highever she’s 28, her birthday spent in the woods holding her breath in case the snap of twigs she hears is Templars instead of foxes. She smells like the ink she’s blackened her hair with, sweat, and the stale chill of morning frost settled on her stolen cloak. She’s high as clouds off of blood lotus leaf. Her travel companion, a blood mage who’d called herself Orchid, is nowhere to be found. Somehow, a young deckhand has fallen in love with her and taken to calling her Marian.

It was all very strange and hazy, in memory. Soft colors and softer edges. The deckhand is a blur, the blood mage a pair of steady, calming hands. The cold, however, still bites as though winter hangs over them, even now.

 _That was such a messy winter_ , Kimani thinks as she sits in bed. That winter was rain and sleet before she’d seen any snow, the grass iced and slippery, the wind as wet as it was frigid. Now she shivers in the memory; Sera twitches beside her, her thin, pale legs sprawled across Kimani’s lap. She turns to look at the rogue and finds her head beneath pillows that Bull had only recently abandoned.

Kimani is certain Sera’s the only one who slept for more than a few hours; they had rented two rooms for the night at Highever’s _Mell_ _’s Inn_ , and Sera had claimed her place by slapping Bull on the stomach and naming her preferred source of warmth, considering their company. Kimani wonders how Dorian had fared in a room with Nashan and Galani, even with his own bed.

Sera squirms some more, waking all at once to stare Kimani in the face with bloodshot eyes.

“Morning already?” She rasps, yawning. Kimani rubs her leg, scratching lightly until Sera rolls away into the dent Bull leaves. “Heater’s up and left. Useless.”

“He went walking, you know.”

“Right. You don’t like this town, do you?” Sera’s flimsy filters are non-existent in the morning; she waits for her answer, taking the piece of jerky Kimani offers.

“No,” Kimani says simply. “And yes. It’s strange. This was my first place. First free place.”

“First places are weird,” Sera says knowingly. “They don’t stay how they were when we first show up. Shifty bastards.” Kimani swats at Sera’s foot when Sera wiggles her big toe against her. “We’ll be gone soon enough.”

“To Ostwick.”

“…yeah that’s not much better. Ehm, at least your mum’s there. And you like her. So you can make a new first place.” Sera jabs her once more in the thigh before sliding out of bed.

That’s a thought. Ostwick as a new first place.

Kimani is doubtful but she dresses, wrapping her head and darkening her brows. It almost feels lazy to not work the kohl into her hair as well; she’d become proficient as a child, hiding her snow-white tresses when frightened looks proved too taxing, though eventually the effort became more than its worth.

As an apostate, disguising herself had been essential to her survival. As Inquisitor she simply wants to move without as many eyes on her as she’s become begrudgingly accustomed to.

Sera hassles her playfully until she’s finished gathering her things. Bull, it seems, had left under the impression that they would be gone before he made it back to the inn; his maul and armor are gone, nothing left of his but a small bag left near the door. Kimani shoulders his pack and checks the room once more before following Sera to where Dorian and Galani are already sniping at each other over a magical term Kimani doesn’t recognize in either man’s language. The room smells like their hair oils, both men’s scents mingling into something almost pleasant.

 Nashan is oblivious to their bickering as she flits about, packing things that had managed to find places all around the room as though they’d been staying at the inn a week or more. They disappear into her pack with each flick of her slender wrist and she breaks her squabbling mentors up long enough for them to clear the room, patting them down to make sure they had everything. Breakfast is hot porridge and molasses, all but Nashan and Sera hungrier than they let on but all equally grateful for a hot meal made by someone else. M _ell's Inn_ proves to be a quiet, orderly stop in a way unlike any other place they'd rested on the road to the sea.

Bull and Skinner meet them all at the ship Nashan had found for them.  _Andraste_ _’s Mercy is_  captained by an older, sun-browned woman with a ring in her lip and twinkling, dark eyes, but they meet Nashan’s boatswain friend first. Sam is a charming and warm old head, his crow’s feet deep despite the last dregs of youth sweetening his laugh. He greets them all warmly, kissing Kimani’s gloved hand with a flirtatious grin and a swipe of his grimy fingers over fine, if worn, leather.

“Nash told me you were an interesting bunch, but you’re even more colorful in person,” he laughs. “Any friends of her and her mum are friends of mine, to be sure. But the big lady is who barters price.”

“Big lady to big lady, then,” Bull says, beckoning to Kimani when Sam gives him the once-over. “I’m just the big.”

Sam holds his arm out to Kimani. “Oh, I know a woman in command when I see her. M’lady.”

Kimani throws Nashan a puzzled look before she laughs, taking the man’s arm. “Ser.”

Captain Jessander is not so jovial, but she gives what Kimani assumes is an approving appraisal after they negotiate a reasonable price. The older woman’s a proper captain from the books; decked in her gear and topped with a fine hat holding a single plume. She smells like salt and hemp and incense, and how Kimani thinks sunshine would smell. Her mouth settles grimly, but there’s no threat in her or the ship as Kimani weaves through working deckhands until they set sail.

For all Kimani knows, she could have sailed on board this same vessel three years before; she hadn’t payed attention to the ship or its captain, and the deckhand who fancied her could had been any of these men. But no one takes her hands in theirs, and no one calls her Marian.

Remembering has pain bursting like fireworks at her temples; she leans over the ship’s edge and blames sea-sickness when Nashan asks, even though she quite likes the rocking. 

And then, there’s the sea itself. It had never held any fascination for Kimani until she first sailed it, until there was nothing around her but water and the roaring sound of _something_ that certainly knew more than any of them. When she smoked her leaves the voice nearly spoke to her; this much she remembers. And she remembers the rock of waves as she slept, how that quiet grew animated and drowned out the need to know land again. Who needed land on the sea? The sea was beyond it. Kimani had nearly gone with the blood mage Orchid, nearly followed her into the open ocean and wherever she endeavored to finally set her feet. Not for any great love of the woman, hardly for any real adoration, but for the endlessness of that possibility.

Galani asked what Kimani would do if there was no more Inquisition, if she was finally freed from the Anchor’s responsibility. Maybe she’d take a trip somewhere with a fair stretch of ocean between here and there.

“I like the sea, too,” Dorian says as he joins her. He looks nearly too casual, his belted jacket discarded so both arms are free to brown under the sun. “Your eldest relative suggested you be checked on. If the Anchor hurts, we need to know.”

“Taking orders from Galani, now?” Kimani bumps him with her hip.

“The man has a point, much as I loathe to credit him. And he’s very smart.”

“Mmm. Much as you _hate_ to say.”

Dorian shrugs, nonchalant beneath her jesting grin.“Well he, for one without a thorough library-”

“Didn’t know you’d seen Dairsmuid’s library before it was burnt to ashes,” Kimani retorts gently, laying her head on Dorian’s shoulder when he grimaces.

“I…suppose you’re right. Jealousy is quite ugly.”

“And you certainly aren’t ugly. No need to be jealous. He seems more than willing to exchange knowledge. You all know the same things. Just…different parts of the puzzle. Put them together. Least until one of you leaves this ragtag band.”

Dorian is, more often than not, a level-headed man. And he is led by loyalty to his cause; someday, sooner than she’d like, he will return to Tevinter.

He pats the back of her hand, lacing his fingers with hers when Kimani turns her palm upwards. “I thought Galani made it very clear that the Inquisition was little more than a resting place on his road to…well, wherever.”

Kimani shrugs. “I’ve recruited enough people to see a potential join. But I could be wrong.”

Dorian leaves her hand to hook his arm around her shoulder, and they communicate more in the way they sink against each other than any words they speak. “Yes. And I _could_ be jealous. Such sin. How will we endure?” They laugh softly, turning their eyes to the gulls overhead as they scream to one another.

“Maybe the birds are so fucking loud because they know we’ll never understand them.”

“… _venedhis_ , you sound like The Iron Bull,” Dorian mutters, jostling her when she mimics her lover in limited qunlat. “So I take it the hand’s not hurting any more than usual?”

Hidden beneath bandage and glove, Kimani can almost pretend there is no Anchor if not for the routine throb in her palm. The road to Ostwick has been calm in that regard; indeed if the Well was triggering her magic only to tell her things, she thinks she’s in for a further stretch of silence, save for the poetic elvhen burble. She hopes so.

“No extra pain,” Kimani replies, flexing her marked hand with a straight face. “My mother can do little about the Anchor, but at least she can help with the rest. It will be good to see her again, Dorian. Awake. See what she’s done these last twenty years.”

“Kimani, your father…”

“One thing at a time,” Kimani chides him, closing her eyes when he makes a consenting noise. “Or else my heart’s gonna break my ribs and abandon me for the ocean.”

They stay above deck a while longer, silent, until they drift apart, too far into their own heads to be any more comfort to each other, too far away to even gripe at the gulls overhead.

 

…

 

Ostwick ground feels like any other ground, its wharf like any other wharf of sun-bleached wood, scuttling workers, and irritable horses. _Andraste_ _’s Mercy_  deposits them and their mounts with little fuss. Kimani remembers Ostwick's docks in colder weather, remembers frost and breezes determined to chill to the bone. And fear.

But she’s not afraid now. She’s…she’s…

“Come back.” Bull takes her hand, and she lets out the breath she’d been holding. The rest of their group watches with an array of expression, patient.

Kimani clears her clear throat. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be. We’ll go into town and find some lodging, then figure out the rest of it tonight. _You_ should probably talk. Doesn’t matter about what, but you did enough mulling over on the boat. One eye, sees everything,” Bull reminds her when she frowns. “Come on, _kadan_. It’s okay. And I’m hungry as shit. What about y'all?”

Their squad gives a tired cheer and Kimani smiles, uprooting herself from where she stands, letting Bull pull her and her horse along until she finds her feet.

 

They’ve just breached the city proper when Kimani stops again. Ostwick is bustling and raucous, even as evening settles over the treetops. The air is tinged in the pungent smell of newly blossomed flowers, and the people look as relieved as though it were the first warm day of the year. Elves and Humans strut about, levels of hierarchy operating in seamless coordination. From the ordinary tan of breeches to the pale silks of bustles and sharp, definitive hues of jackets, Ostwick pulses a spectrum of color as life mills about in this plaza, a tall and classically Orlesian fountain spilling water in its center.

The Old Cathedral Plaza,Kimani remembers, though no one remembers when there had ever been a cathedral here.

A noblewoman in violet finery deigns to smile at them, her pale blue eyes settling on Kimani for an extended moment, and something in her gaze re-roots Kimani to the pavement.

“Hey,” Bull coos, his hand rubbing large circles into her back. “Hey, it’s alright, it’s-”

“No, love.” Kimani pulls away from him, watching the lady strut away. She is not familiar to Kimani—too pale to be her mother’s kin and too blonde to be her father’s brood— but the air about her is something she knows. Thinks she knows, remembers that bald-faced yet genteel curiosity as something distinctly Marcher.

This _is_ Ostwick, city-state of humble finery and music and horses and hills. Her father holds power in high places. Her mother was once its nightingale.

And she, the daughter of such song and secret had walked in this plaza as a child, her petticoats itchy against fat, short legs. Her slippers too thin for the cobblestone that goes nearly unnoticed beneath the tough boots she wears now.

All of this from the smile of a lady. Kimani’s mouth is suddenly filled with the bitter, comforting taste of rose petals straight from the rose. Her mother would chastise her for eating the flowers, then make her tea from the remaining buds.

 _Lakul su_ _’ati,_ Asha would say, shaking her head so her locs rippled like windblown vines. _Spit them out and cut me four bulbs for the pot, silly girl._

“Oh,” Kimani says dumbly as memory pulls her apart just to put her back together, making her skin hum with energy beyond the reach of her own conjure. “Oh, shit.”

The word “home” does not fit here. It doesn’t push its way onto her tongue, it isn’t some stubborn ideal left over from the apostate longing for Ostwick to be hers again. This is not her home.

But, this is everything she’s kept locked behind a sturdy inner door, set free as the city greets her like an old ghost given flesh again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welp. We have landed in Ostwick, friends. Finally time to meet Kimani's parents, and get some help for her Solas problem.  
> ...neither of those things is simple. 
> 
> Please, let me know what you think so far! Comments (no matter how small or big), questions, concerns, flailing are all welcome(and equally loved)! Or, hit me up on tumblr at belowbedlam.tumblr.com


	12. Earnest Endeavors

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Twenty years in the Circle, three years as apostate, Herald, and Inquisitor, a lot and lot of miles, and Kimani finally makes it back to the small Ostwick villa where she was born. 
> 
> Some nerves, but then a whole lot of happy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm personally very happy to have this chapter out; it's a long time coming for Kimani. I hope you enjoy it.

Kimani scrubs herself down with focused determination until her brown skin blushes red, until her hair squeaks as she rinses it. She cleans her fingernails, her ears, between her toes, between her teeth with a thin cord of thread soaked in mint. She has Bull wash her back; she nearly bends in half, face just above the steaming water of her bath, and he has to pull her upright.

“Don’t say it,” She advises when she hears the first guttural warning of his favored _taashath, kadan_ , flutter the back of his throat. “I know.”

Bull’s hands don’t stutter over her skin as he rubs the last of her soap and oil over a body now completely devoid of road-wear. She curls her puckered fingers against her chest when he gently massages her shoulders.

“Your hair,” Bull murmurs, playing with the curls at the nape of her neck.

“Go ahead.”

His hands leave her to pour more oil-softened water over her head, pulling loose tangles and curls until her hair is weighed down into uniformed tufts. He parts her tresses to get to the scalp, ignoring her sharp gasps of pain when it pulls because they’ve done this before. Kimani sits in near-silent obedience as he turns her head this way and that. When he tips her head backwards onto his lap and strokes her throat before resuming his task, she doesn’t chastise him. She can’t; how would she explain the sigh slipped through nervously gritted teeth?

When he’s done, he leaves her to finish bathing; She rubs creams into her skin and squeezes her hair until it stops dripping, wrapping a headscarf securely around her edges.

“Feeling better?” He asks from the bed.

 “Feeling something, Big’un. Trust me with it.”

“Like I have a choice, _kadan_? Come here.” Bull has made himself as comfortable as possible on the bed, naked and sheening with a quick wash and a swipe of oil, his arm outstretched to her. “Trust _me_.”

It is too early for either of them to be truly tired, but Kimani crawls in after him and feels the routine aches of travel settle as she lay down with a sigh. Bull’s tapping out a song on his chest, seemingly content with his arm curled around her. But she knows well enough that he’s simply biding time. Kimani sighs.

“Look…I’m _scared_ , Big’un,” She tells him, and it _is_ a weight lifted, as much as she won’t admit. “That’s the long and short of it. Why did I think I could just traipse here like I visit every year?”

She watches as his eye rolls her way, blinking slowly to space the answer she know he’s had ready for her.

“Cus you’re a brave fuck, along with being a small and stubborn one,” Bull shrugs. “And you deserve to see this through. It’s the only damn thing you’ve wanted, and fuck if you haven’t earned it. Hey,” He says when she kisses him. “Don’t gotta thank me for the truth.”

Their faces remain close, his steady eye holding her casually captive. Neither close their eyes when she kisses him again.

“It’s not the only thing I want.”

 “The oldest thing, then.” He returns the favor now, a steady stream of quiet, soft pecks until she scrunches her nose. Then, he kisses her nose.

“Gentle fucking giant,”she teases, nuzzling him. “Gone soft.”

Bull smirks. “Never. But I’m pretty sure blowing your back out the night before you meet your mother is…impolite. At best.”

Kimani sputters, butting him as she laughs. “That, and I don’t think this bed’ll hold anyway.” She rocks, and they both laugh at the distressed, creaky groan the bed gives in response.

Often, they fall asleep in their own formations, migrating towards one another in the night but Bull holds her close now, pulling her onto his chest when she mumbles about his arms losing circulation. The rise and fall of his chest, the low hum of his breathing, the way his thumb rubs a small spot on her back all have her drifting. Calm.

“Sly…” she murmurs, realizing his game, and she can nearly hear his smile.

“If I had a middle name like you, Kimani Patris, that’d be it.”

 

 

She tries to remember Bull's gentle reassurance, as well as her own fortitude, as she, Galani,and Nashan leave the inn at sunrise. Dorian, Bull, and the rest are to stay behind; even though Nashan had written ahead to tell of their coming, three lost children was more than enough of a morning shock for their mothers. No need to bring the selected Inquisition down on them as well, not at first.

Kimani watches Ostwick morph as they leave the Old Cathedral plaza, taking a road that winds through some of the northern estates. House Trevelyan sits further west, accessible by a different road, and this calms Kimani enough that she might admire the few estates they do pass. The road is nothing but packed earth threatened by the swell of flora on either side, its only reprieve the open mouth entrances of great Ostwick Houses and the blossomed fields between them. Kimani examines the visible verandas and corners of gardens spilled over the gates and finds none familiar.

 Eventually the forests swallows them up again, and Kimani feels her stomach grow heavy as she senses their proximity to the villa. The forest looks like any other forest, the smell of green pungent as trees fill out in the late spring heat. None of it is familiar or unfamiliar, but something in her knows.

 

And then the road bends, turning left.

 

 _Lakul su_ _’ati_ Kimani thinks, remembering her mother’s playful chastising, as she’s faced with a line of bushes fat with roses determined to escape, the blossoms pressing between the bars of a gleaming iron fence. Its gate arches like a chantry entrance, thin vines of iron wrapped around the frame in decoration, centered by a wind chime that sways silently in the weak morning breeze. Its crystal adornments glitter in the sunlight, and Kimani squints. It is the only reason she realizes her cheeks are slick with tears; quickly she wipes them away. That gate had always had a wind chime in her dreams, though it would be different every time.

 _I_ _’m awake_ she thinks. _I_ _’m awake, I’m awake._

“We tie the horses there,” Nashan says, beckoning to a post that stands to the side of the gate. “And Osher can come for them.”

Kimani dismounts and does as she’s told, squeezing her hands together as she turns to the gate. The bushes and trees are high; the roof of her mother’s home is a peek of brown and a curl of smoke from the hearth.

And arm comes around her shoulder: Galani sighs, smiling down at her as he shrugs.

“If _I_ say it will be fine, you must believe it.”

 Kimani can’t bring herself to speak and smiles back, holding him at the waist. Her skin is a field of electricity, as though she’d casted over herself. Her feet are, once again, tree roots.

Nashan stands in front of them, waiting. “I suppose we _could_ stay out here, after coming all this way” she jokes, beckoning to the gate, “but at noon it gets a little-”

The proud and smooth groan of an oiled gate slices through the air, and they all turn to the sound.

“Thought I heard someone,” A middle-aged woman calls out before she steps onto the street. “I’ll thank you to…Nashan Anur Lia, is that… _Oh,_ Maker, take me.” She whispers.

 Kimani doesn’t recognize her, sable skin and sandy hair arranged in a kinky halo around her head, thick bodied and with arms that could do more than some damage. She looks between the three of them for a moment, disbelief and relief

Nashan steps forward. “Osher! Good to see you. Told you I’d be back.”

“Oh girl…You’re _early_ for once,” Osher laughs, bringing her hands to her mouth. She points brazenly first at Galani, and then Kimani. “Are these who I think they are?” She stares a moment longer, then drops a frantic curtsy, her jewelry tinkling. “Apologies, Inquisitor.”

Before Kimani can protest another voice fills the air, warm and silken: a voice that knew the notes of better songs once, one that still measures breath in precious pieces. Kimani goes cold.

“Osher don’t just stand in the gate, if its empty we’ve things to do. Unless your lover has returned?” Asha Lia presses in beside Osher, grinning cheekily before she realizes the look on her maid’s face.

She follows Osher’s gaze and gasps quietly, small hands fluttering to her chest as she looks at Kimani. 

Kimani realizes too late that she stands as she’s become accustomed to with her hands clasped behind her back, too formal as her mother looks her over. But she can’t move; there is strength in this posture, and she needs it.

“Hello, you,” Asha says softly, her smile spreading. “Hello. Oh, you’re even prettier here. And look at that _hair_.” She tilts her head, beaming.

Kimani smiles shyly back, hear heart thumping in her ears as she tries her hardest to form words. “Hi mama.”

“Well, come here so I can see you.” Asha steps onto to the road, beckoning Kimani closer until they stand in the path’s center, so many years and a thousand unsaid things giving way to the dwindling space between them. Her mother smells like an expensive Orlesian lady, all peonies and musk, the welcoming scent of hair oil a faint undertone. Kimani breathes it in.

Asha reaches out the final, small distance, hesitating before laying her hand on Kimani’s cheek; her palm is chilled but warms quickly, her thumb pressing into her skin as if Asha means to become part of it.

A sigh; she must fight against the way her eyes want to shut, to bask.

Kimani watches the way her mother fights tears, follows the ticks and rises in her gaze and gleans a story from it; fear and doubt and hope. She leans into her mother’s caress but is afraid that closing her eyes would break something, would render this little more than a dream. But the way the soft pads of her mother’s fingers skim over the angles and slopes of her face is not a dream, and she knows it; the way she wipes fresh, unstoppable tears as though she’s always done it, the slow and tender caress. As if Asha has always been able to console her daughter.

It is nearly too much, and Kimani’s face grows hot as tears slide over her cheeks faster than they can be wiped away.

Asha knows; Kimani was afraid that she’d have to say it, but her mother _knows_.

“Don’t cry, Kimani. Don’t cry. I’m sorry. I…” her voice breaks as she turns her head away, and Kimani watches her mother weep for the span of a breath before turning back to face her.“Spirits, I am so deeply sorry that I’ve done this to you. I did not protect my child.”

The dam breaks but the river is forgiving, meting out its force so nothing needs to drown; Kimani feels old emotion tighten her chest, the mix of anger and mourning she’d folded neatly away but could never truly eradicate. The want. She lets it course through her once more, and it fizzles out to make room for the forgiveness Kimani chooses.

“It’s done, mama,” she cries softly, laying her hands on Asha’s shoulders. Feeling strong lines beneath cool silk. “It’s alright.”

“It will _never_ be alright,” Asha protests, cupping Kimani’s face in her hands. They stand eye-level with each other, and Kimani looks into a dark, smooth face. The lines of her age are few and shallow. High cheekbones.“You must never settle for such things, Kimani Patris, no matter who does them.”

“It is my choice, and I…endeavor to forgive. I try.” _I tried all the time, every meeting in the Fade, every letter._ Kimani slides her hand over her mother’s collar and sees she wears her necklace. Moons on the mouth of a bear. Her own fox’s jaw peeks out from beneath her scarf.

Asha looks as though she’s been offered some treasure too grand to accept.“ If that’s what you wish, I will endeavor to deserve it.”

“Mama,you taught me everything I know…”

“That was my _duty_. I owed you nothing less than a chance at life. And look at what you’ve done with it…you are the greatest thing of which I ever hope to be worthy. I will not fail you a second time.” In this, Asha is firm; she holds their faces close together, staring until Kimani nods, a fresh fall of tears obscuring her view. “Spirits, my child. My heart is ready to rise and fly away,” She laughs now, squeezing her eyes shut. “I do not deserve to be so happy.”

“It’s good to see you,” Kimani whispers, leaning her forehead against her mother’s cool brow. Small communion, connection to what had always bound them. “It’s so good to see you.”

“It is good to see _you_.” Asha draws her into a gentle hug that threatens another wave of tears from them both before they pull away. “And you have brought you wily cousins,” she says. “The disappearing act and he who survives. _Talamu enir, Galani._ ”

“ _Damiq simtum talamu, Asha Kenee,_ ” Galani replies happily, his voice just above Kimani’s head as he leans to kiss his aunt’s cheek. When had he come so close? Now, he takes both of them by the hand, smiling in a away Kimani has not seen in their time together; he is like the sun. “Come, let’s inside, auntie. Cousin. Youngest,” He calls behind him to a smiling, tearful Nashan. “If the remaining mothers are within, we should meet them. Might as well add to the tears.”

“And the shouting,” Nashan adds, following as Galani ushers them through the gate. “ _My_ mother is going to kill me.”

 

…

 

What Bull sees is a lot of light.

Younger has a brother, or Younger’s good at disguises: the man looks just like her, dark and thin with a child’s face, though his voice is ages grown. He comes to their inn - this one’s called _Planasene_ \- and knocks on the door with such surety that Bull nearly thinks Kimani has returned, even though it’s only noon. Sed Lia gathers them up without hesitation, greeting each of them with a stern polite air, and leads them to the villa.

The laughter is what gets him once they come upon the small property; it sings in the air like a welcome wind, and Bull finds himself smiling. She laughs often enough for his liking, but this sounds different. Sounds better than good, and from there on it’s nothing but celestial beings glowing out their pores, glowing through their teeth.

His Kimani sits in the garden with her family, fallen petals of roses already settling in her hair. Her mother- a beautiful woman with skin as dark as Nashan’s and gray-streaked locs near as long, clad in a pale blue dress limned in silver stitching- sits next to her, her demeanor a funny mix of joy and timidity. They hold hands as they exchange happy chatter with an Antivan woman with every angle of face that sharpens Galani’s own. Her thick hair is grayed over and braided in the way of her son. Or Galani’s is braided in the way of his mother. She lay her head on his shoulder as she talks and Galani listens to them all, his face relaxed into something unendingly pleasant.

Nashan isn’t in the garden but he can hear her through the open patio door; she’s happily arguing with what must be her own mother.

Everyone turns to them when Sed brings him and the rest of their crew into the garden.

Kimani stands. “These are my people. This is Sera, and Skinner, Dorian Pavus, and The Iron Bull.”

Silence as the women survey them boldly; Bull is reminded of his childhood in a quick flash of submissive urge.

 Undaunted, Dorian steps forward to bow low.

“Ladies,” He says. “It is an honor to meet the parents of our friends, and we thank you for your hospitality.”

“Good to meet you,” Bull adds simply because he thinks he should say something, get his friendly voice into their heads before they side-eye him, however politely, to death.

Sera waves, and Skinner fails at a smile.

Kimani laughs and looks to Bull, and the amount of love on her face is mountainous. _Look,_ she seems to say. _Look at them all._

Asha sees it, too, and casts a cursory glance at Bull before affording Dorian her gaze. “Nonsense, Messere Pavus. We don’t stand on _quite_ so much ceremony, here. Come join us, the lot of you, and we’ll bring you something to drink. Tell us of your journey while lunch finishes cooking; I hope the lot of you eat.” Her accent is more confusing than Kimani’s; it straddles the fence of two languages that should have more than a fence between them. “I have a feeling Sera and The Iron Bull do.”

“That’s bloody right,” Sera says proudly, walking into the garden to find a place to sit. Dorian doesn’t sit until he’s greeted each of the mothers, including Nashan’s in the kitchen; He finds a fast friend in Galani’s mother when she opens her mouth and Tevene comes out.

Bull sees a big space to sit off in a corner of the small garden and heads for it, perfectly fine with keeping his distance until lunch. Give him a moment to see.

Kimani laughs at something her mother says as the garden buzzes once more with chatter. She holds her mother’s hand in a loose clasp, their fingers playing against one another as they talk. They’re remembering; Asha will will say something and Kimani will go blank for a second, then brighten as she nods recollection. They are filling in blanks; at occasional comments her eyes go wide and she says _is that so_ in the dramatic drawl she tends to use. She keeps the Anchor covered, for now.

Bull settles into his spot and Skinner follows him, mumbling about how now there are no less than _six_ of Kimani’s brood, and how can they be so much alike? She hears that Rivaini shems are nearly decent in comparison to the rest. And on, as they fill the space between now and the commencement of whatever food cooks in the kitchen. Bull smells meat and a number of spices, some kind of sturdy green. Hot oil.

 Galani’s teeth flash as he rocks his mother against him, speaking to her in soft Antivan before switching to a Rivaini-Trade pidgin that Kimani seems to follow well enough, and pleases Asha’s slippery accent. Sed finally cracks a smile teasing his aunts until they pluck small stones from the grass to toss at his legs. Eventually, Nashan’s mother emerges from the house to greet them, smelling deliciously of their lunch. She is the blatant youngest, vivacious; between her and both of her children they share the same face and the same smile as she laughs at her pelted son.

So _many_ smiles. It tugs at Bull’s heart when he lets himself loosen, sinking into his seat.

It’s a good spot to be in if he’s honest, the large slab of stone as good a place as any. Good view, as good a place as any to be blinded by such awe-inspiring light.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next up: probably some fluff before we get to business. A bit more of Mama Asha looking at Bull sideways because that's my personal favorite thing that I now get to share it in the fic xD.
> 
> (headcanon) Rivaini Glossary:
> 
> Lakul su'ati: Don't eat that (In regard to how Kimani used to try and eat her mother's roses)
> 
> Talamu enir, Galani: Galani, I wish light on you. (since he was technically dead, this is like a warding away of any further evil)
> 
> Damiq simtum talamu, Asha Kenee: And I wish good fate on you, Asha Kenee (He's lowkey wishing her good luck with reconciling further with Kimani. Also elder/superior is addressed by both names).


	13. New Tapestry

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kimani and Asha spend a moment alone.

They only spend a bit of time remembering; What is passed is past, and they try to _be_ past it.

Asha brings Kimani to her study, which used to be Kimani’s room. Her memory of it is non-existent save for the night she nearly burned it down; its not a bad memory. Just a heavy one.

There so much light filtering in through the wall-length window that Kimani nearly forgets they’re inside. She follows how the sunshine curves over bookshelf and desk and ceramic trinkets: beads and dishes and single earrings in need of their mates. Scarves and paintings of the old opera house that, after so long, operates under a new name.

“I like to make jewelry,” Asha says when Kimani’s fingers itch to roll each free bead around in her palm like a precious stone. “Some of it I keep, and some of it I sell in the _ta-gibil_.”

Kimani doesn’t know the term; she watches her mother glide across the room in a formless, sleeveless dress of light cotton and bright yellow dye. There are tiny, glass beads sewn in clusters that wink when the sun hits them. She reaches high on the bookshelf and brings a wooden box to where Kimani sits timidly behind the desk.

“Here,” she says, opening the box and pushing it towards Kimani’s waiting hands.

Inside are pristine clay beads, dipped and designed- painstakingly, it seems- with thin, delicate flourishes of an equally fine brush. Kimani is afraid to hold them; she runs her fingers over their smooth, cool surfaces.

“These are beautiful,” she says, tapping a bead with her nail. “You make them by hand?

Asha nods proudly. “Yes. I buy the glaze but we make the clay, and I have a friend with a fine kiln. I provide her with simple fire runes, she lets me use it whenever I desire. The most perfect ones I keep until there are enough for a bracelet or a trinket for the clothing.”

A bright red bead with shimmering gray designs catches Kimani’s eye. “The crimson one is especially pretty.”

“Hmm,” Asha smiles, putting the box away. “Perhaps I’ll use it to make you jewelry, if you’d like. Maybe a bracelet?”

“I’d like that,” Kimani smiles back. “What is _ta-gibil_?”

“Well, it means _new roots_. We have been coming over to southern lands for ages, now. Our people,” Asha begins, falling into her overstuffed chair, an air of utter content settling over her skin like shimmering perfume. “We try to build small communities. Home away from home, yes, but also a place from which we can decide how and how much we assimilate. Learn the culture, do not forget your own, and so forth.  In Ostwick it is more of a weekly gathering. The Marches are afraid of difference; permanent and thriving _ta-gibil_ are few and far-between here. As a market, it’s more palatable.” Asha shrugs. “I will take you to it, while you are here. You and your companions.”

“Would my mercenary captain be welcome?” Kimani asks, trying her best to seem as at-ease as her mother.

“It is not often you see many qunari in our  _ta-gibil_ ,” Asha says, nodding as if she’s referred to some inner tally of qunari at market and found it, indeed, sparse. “But he wouldn’t be turned away. Especially not seeing as I currently reside over Ostwick’s _ta-gibil_.”

Kimani's eyes widen in astonishment. “So your retirement is a busy one.”

Asha shrugs, grinning. “Busy enough, I suppose.”

They fall into companionable silence, bathed in early evening sunlight and the light scent of a long-doused stick of incense. Kimani like show the simple elegance of the study is peppered everywhere with little bowls of colorful surprise. A well designed, and well lived in, space. Pretty, and precious. She can see her mother spending many hours here. She can’t see her room at all.

It is a good use of the space. It is a good study, with its fine-threaded tapestries and rugs.

“So,” Asha says timidly, and Kimani wonders if she’s more regretful of breaking their quiet or being afraid of asking a question. “How do you like Skyhold, now that enemies don’t knock on your door?”

“I’ve been informed enemies might always knock on my door,” Kimani says, smiling, “But since the world’s done ending, it’s nice. Busy. This is almost a vacation, if not for…” Kimani waves her hand aimlessly as she’s taken to doing instead of saying “Anchor,” or “my hand.” Most days she hates the thought of speaking its name, is tired of it.

 She hasn’t unwrapped yet; there is always a change in the atmosphere and onlookers once the Anchor is able to breathe. And she wants to just be Kimani for a moment longer. “It’s not very pretty.”

Asha nods sadly. “I’ve heard stories of it. None of them true, I’m guessing.”

“Depends.”

“Well…I’ve heard one could go blind by looking at it, and it burns on the touch, for one.”

Kimani laughs harder than she should; she has to cover her mouth, swallowing her mirth as her mother watches in confusion.

“Definitely not true, mama. I’ve had people stick their fingers in it, it’s so harmless. Well…harmless is a funny word. At the very least it will not blind or burn you,” She says, smiling kindly. “It _does_ have a tendency to alter the mood,though.”

Asha looks between Kimani’s hand and her face, her smile going sympathetic. “I bet it does. If you’re afraid of this same thing with me…I’m sure I’ve seen scarier things than your hand. To train as a Seer is to, well, _see_ many things. To be a Dreamer is to always be on that edge, as you know.”

“As you taught me.” Kimani sighs heavily.

The bandages were given by Dagna, dipped in a black ink that supposedly swallowed light; she unravels them carefully, rolling them tight to fit in the inner pocket of her vest. The Anchor flutters, pulsing freely, and Kimani huffs at it before reaching her hand across the desk, palm up.

“ _Mellammu_ ,” Asha murmurs, coming closer.

“Galani said the same thing.” Kimani nods when her mother asks wordlessly to touch her hand. “I think it means bright…holy bright?”

“Very nearly. More like an awe-inspiring light. Holy, yes, but not so literally.” Asha holds Kimani’s hand close to her face, squinting; she takes one small finger and waves it through the curl  of green light.

For a moment, Kimani is reminded of herself that first week after the Conclave, of the hours she’d spent gazing into the Anchor’s glow. Kimani can’t think on it too long, lest the weight of all that has transpired bring her down.

When Asha dips her finger into the voided space, she does it so quickly Kimani nearly misses it. Both of them gasp, then giggle.

Told you,” Kimani says, flexing her hand in Asha’s grasp. “Not so bad.”

She must always give a comforting smile to anyone observing the Anchor for the first time; there is always a string of pity threaded through any wonderment that the Anchor affords, and she sees it now in her mother.

“You brave woman,” Asha says softly. The sadness pulls at her face only for a moment before a warm smile creeps from the edges of her mouth into the sunny brown of her eyes. “Is it alright to say that I am proud of you?”

“Of course,” Kimani says just as quietly, scoffing in embarrassment when Asha kisses her knuckles. “Of course it is.”

 

They stay like that, smiling at each other until a heavy knock turns both gazes to the door.

 

Bull peeks in as though bashful, smiling a crooked smile that has Kimani biting back a jesting grin.

“Serah The Iron Bull,” Asha says, nodding.

“Heh. Messere Lia. Boss, in about an hour it’ll be near-dark.” He makes himself sound apologetic, and it could be genuine, but he’s most likely trying to seem as sweet as possible beneath Asha stern, if polite, gaze.

“Alright. What do you think, Bull? Half an hour, then?”

“You got it,” He grins. One more respectful nod to Asha, and he’s gone again, thumping down the hall. They hear Dorian’s clear laugh and the thin rise of Madrigal’s own before they turn back to each other.

“Our first meeting is near over, then,” Asha says, failing to hide her disappointment. Kimani is grateful her mother does not invite her to stay the night.

“We will be back in the morning if that’s alright. Or at least I will, with Dorian. He and Galani cared for me the last time I was drawn into the Fade. Or we can come the day after, if that is better. I hear that we’ve come a bit earlier than expected.”

“Child, I am a retired singer in a villa paid for,” Asha says with a dismissive wave of her hand, chuckling. “I’ve been preparing to give time to you since I received Nashan’s letter; neither the _ta-gibil_ nor my other petty endeavors will suffer for a few days with my daughter. Especially not with what it seems we will soon embark on.” Now the steady, knowledgeable demeanor of the mother Kimani has always known in the Fade comes through, steeling her posture and lending a glint to her eye. “Honestly, I’ve been curious for weeks.”

“I will bring my notes with me tomorrow. As well as the notes of a…companion, and my arcanist.” Suddenly it feels crass to begin planning their endeavor. It feels as though they haven’t spent enough time reunited before Kimani puts her mother to work. It feels wrong.

But Asha nods vigorously. “Oh, _yes_. That’d be lovely. And perhaps you will tell me about the last time I saw you on the other side. Or perhaps not,” she says hastily when Kimani raises a brow. “I’m only curious.”

“Actually,” Kimani admits, “It’s probably best if I tell you about what happened at Adamant in full. So yes, mama. You’re in for a tale.”

Asha laughs like a bell. “I love stories, Patris. But that is tomorrow. For now, the garden?” She glides to the door. “I will get no sleep tonight if I don’t let Tavi poke at you before you leave.”

Aunt Tavi, once she’d finished in the kitchen, had returned to the garden and crushed Kimani in the tightest, happiest hug she would never afford to such a small woman.

 _My beautiful hero niece, look at you. You_ _’ve saved the world_ ** _and_** _took care of my quarrelsome spawn. Dear, dear niece. You are most welcome._

Kimani follows her mother out of the study; as she crosses the doorway she’s filled with a rush of memory, hazed over with nostalgia, of a little room filled with wooden toys and banners of happy-faced figures. Not human per se, and not quite animal, but very much friendly presences. She smells bread, and tastes honey on her tongue, and turns back to the room in delighted confusion.

But the study is still there, fading orange with the late afternoon sun. She can see her relatives and her people through the window, lazing in the garden as though they’ve known each other for years. Save Skinner, of course, though even she seems at ease.

 

Kimani gives quiet thanks for the memory, fleeting as it was, and goes outside to join them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a short ditty before we get down to bidness.


	14. Witches In The Work

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kimani and Asha go into the Fade to figure out how Asha can help with Kimani's Solas problem.
> 
> Dreamer Nation, stand up.

Asha wants to build walls.

They sit in her parlor with tea sets balanced on their knees, speaking casually of the Fade they knew and the places that they’d built together. Kimani hasn’t visited their shared spaces for longer than she’s avoided her own. By now they’d be overtaken by the Fade, which owns all; _Somniari_ pinch and borrow and use only that which they can maintain, but even the unwieldy domains of Demons fall back to mist when their times come.

“This man. Solas,” Asha says, watching Kimani through the steam of her tea. “You trusted him a great deal, Kimani Patris.”

“I did.” Kimani nods, sighing into her cup. The nerves that had ridden her from Skyhold to Ostwick are gone; As hard as she tries she cannot find them. There is no guilt or apprehension on speaking about the events of her Inquisition, or her relationship to Solas, perhaps because she knows her mother would not -could not- judge. “He was important to me. Taught me things. Dreamt with me. Saved my life at least twice.”

“He sounds like a fine man.” Asha says, “But I’m guessing he’s not quite that.”

“He is the reason I’m here so soon,” Kimani says honestly, continuing only when her mother gives a small smile. “He manipulates my dreams so that I cannot remember when he visits me, unless he wills it. And he says it’s for his own anonymity, but I’d keep him out all the same.”

Asha’s smile disappears, replaced with a tempered sternness Kimani knows thoroughly. “He knows you far too well.”

Kimani grimaces at the steel in her mother’s voice. “Yeah. I’ve made more than a few mistakes on that end.”

“Then the scoundrel is arrogant. The Dalish dreamers are not even so bold…this elf is confident that his ability surpasses yours.”

“It _does_ ,” Kimani insists. “He has visited so many places, learned so many things from the spirits. It is the reason he appealed to me at all. He was _more_ than me. I had only ever had that-”

“With me,” Asha finishes, raising a silencing hand when Kimani moves to protest. “And I am difficult for you, my daughter.”

No. This is not what she wants. “You are forgiven.” She says, too tersely for the way she yearns for the room’s calm atmosphere to remain. But there are too many years, too many blighted, damned years that settle in the spaces of this house and cannot simply be ousted with a warm reunion.

“I have an earnest daughter,” Asha says quietly, circling the rim of her cup with one tapered finger. “Stubborn, determined, authoritative. I nearly wanted to say _Yes, ser,_ ” She chuckles, taking her time before continuing. “Forgiven or not forgiven, I am grateful to have you before me in the flesh. And I am happy that your Dreaming has strayed. Do you know why?” Her smile is small, waiting, knowing before Kimani speaks that Kimani does not know.

“Enlighten me, mama.”

“He knows only what you have showed him, and you have not shown him me,” Asha leans forward, beaming now with pearl-white teeth. “So this will be nice.”

Kimani has seen such a smile before, recognizes the glint in her mother’s eye and resists the urger to shrink away.

 

 _Somniari_ must deal with many things, hunger among them.

…

Bull follows Sera and Skinner follows him into a market in a larger plaza and wonders if Ostwick is nothing but plazas. He rubs at the base of his horns in irritation and tries to sooth his mind by watching the mundane, finding the silver threads in a baker’s movements. He buys a damn pastry, then buys another. Rubs at his horns and probably gets jelly in his hair.

 _You_ _’re mine to protect_ , he’d told Kimani in the morning, after she’d asked him to stay away from the villa. Of course he will, but with whatever the Fade or Solas was doing to her, having her out of his sight proves to wear more on his nerves than he’d expected.

 _Magic is not yours to protect me from_ , She’d said kindly, kissing him in the sweet way that coaxed him into pretending to be alright with it. They both know it isn’t true.

Bull thinks he’ll just roam, mean-faced and stared at by dozens of pairs of Marcher eyes, until his feet take him back to the villa in the afternoon. He’s already planned for that sort of aimless time spent, trailing Sera and busying himself with finding her when he cared to realize she had gone.

But then there’s a glint of adorned horns and a flash of ice-blue eyes in a very qunari face. Bull doesn’t really… _care_ about Vashoth, doesn’t really care to seek them out because of what he is and was and will probably always be.

But this one, leaned against a stall draped in scarves, looks irritated and out-of-place enough to be interesting.

 

“You find me when they’re done at the villa,” he says to Skinner, and she’s gone before he can finish speaking.

…

 

A sandwich, a bit of banter between Galani and Dorian, a funny smelling bag of leaves, a very comfortable bed, and Kimani finds herself back in the Fade.

She stands with a hand over her mouth as her mother looks around them, bewildered at the state of her things. Kimani cannot excuse it; she knows better.

“Well _shit_ , girl,” Asha scoffs, shaking her head.

 _Somniari_ shape the Fade at will and the skill is powerful. The skill is demanding; where blood magic requires body, Dreaming requires soul. _Somniari_ who survive the doubled burden of a demon’s desire of their flesh, who take hold of their skill and mold it so each door they rend from the Fade is unique, are unwittingly offering pieces of themselves to the green mist.

Kimani knows. She remembers the first time she felt both less and more upon waking, the frazzled joy of it so much that she had to cry happy tears quietly into her hands because Marquesa was already dead and no one else in the Circle would ever be so close to understand. Not even Masrin. It had felt _good_ , like she could achieve something with what was given to her. She could, in some small way, conquer what power she’d wielded to the death of her friend. So, she knows.

The Fade-Kimani’s Fade, where she keeps herself in Dreams- looks like shit, now. The walls of her old spaces are brittle and worn. Abandoned, the field left to nature’s devices, as it were.

Asha scoffs again,incredulously, hands on her hips as she turns in a full circle. Holds her hand out to the Fade and watches a weak gust of fadestuff break against her knuckles. The look she affords Kimani is one of pity and the resistance it takes not to chastise her. Her mother’s body is limned in the glow of her own power, her movements as calculated as they are carefree. Her eyes are sharp, alert.

This is the woman Kimani knows best; she doesn’t need to speak for Kimani to hear her.

  _This is a mess, and you should be shamed._

Asha’s actual words are more kind. “My girl. When was the last time you dreamed?”

Kimani looks around her, feels brittle in the midst of self-inflicted degradation. “Of my own volition? Months ago.”

More disappointed looks. “Yes, that’s exactly what it looks like. You know, a cramped muscle spasms. Abandoned bridges fall, and all of that. It’s not a surprise someone so close to you could pull the strings of your dreams as this Solas has.”

The thought of him, very literally, playing the threads of her dreams like harp strings makes her burn. “So what do you propose?” Kimani asks carefully, turning as a demonic snarl catches her ear. When nothing reveals itself, she looks down at her hand and sees the Anchor glowing happily.

 _Home, sweet home_ , it seems to say.

Asha comes to Kimani’s side and Kimani leans into the familiar and enduring comfort of her mother’s power. “Call your friend.”

Now, she leans away. “Come again?”

Asha shrugs, and begins to walk. Kimani watches her go into the mist, dumbstruck, before following quickly behind. “Your friend. The one who likes to give dreams and then take them away. I want to see this person who toys with my child.”

 _Ah, shit._ “Mama, besides the fact that it’s the middle of the day…we’re not fighting Solas in the Fade.” _He is frightening and different and **wrong** , here. He is too comfortable, here._

“I don’t want to fight. And he doesn’t need to be sleeping for us to find him, as you well know.” Asha says sternly, turning to the sound of yet another snarl. The Fade warps itself around the demons as easily as it obscures and swallows their feet as they walk along the shapeless dreamscape. Half-mountains and shade-ruins and the Black City like a corrupted sun high in the distance, its heat heavy and disgusting and pulsing, stretch the Fade into ever-changing forms.

“You were always so fascinated by it.” Asha’s voice, though quiet, pierces her thoughts. “ _Turn away from the City_ , I’d have to tell you. After what happened to your friend, you’d just…stare at it, as if it had the answers to a question you wouldn’t ask me.” Old guilt dredges up from the memory, for both of them.

The Fade had been a refuge in those days, a place where none of the things that reminded her of Marquesa existed and the Black City seemed like a reasonable hideaway. No one would ever come for her in that place. She could become a ruin, worn into the walls of the fallen city, and languish forever.

That was so long ago.

“I try to say her name when I speak of her,” Kimani murmurs, looking away from the sordid sun. “Marquesa. Dear Mara.”

“May her young spirit, so long free, remain at peace. Marquesa,” Asha nods, squeezing Kimani’s shoulder. “Call for Solas, Kimani. If he says not to look for him, let us simply see if the pieces of himself that haunt here answer.”

Kimani trusts her mother in the Fade more than she trusts anything else in her life, maybe. This woman comes before all others.

So, she calls.

And waits.

And she calls.

And waits.

And calls.

No Solas.

“Alright,” Asha says finally, her hand coming down to grip Kimani’s shoulder too-tight. “Alright, Patris. You won’t have any energy left if you keep it up. Perhaps we’ll try again in the night.”

Weary, Kimani nods. “Now what? We wake?” She’d be lying if she said she didn’t want to be awake right now; calling in the fade leaves her skin raw all over.

“Not yet,daughter,” Asha shakes her head, slapping her on the back. “We start building those walls I was talking about. Might as well not waste any time. We can get some foundation in before we go on back to the other side. Time is funny here, but Galani won’t be waking us until at least afternoon. And I don’t think we’ve been here that long.”

Reluctantly, Kimani agrees with a nod; it _is_ best to utilize all their time. She could only linger so long in Ostwick before Leliana had one of her people drag them back by their hair. “As you say.”

“And you remember how we lay foundation, yes?”

Oh, does she. Her dream-muscles _ache_ with the memory of those lessons. “I remember.”

Asha grins, tossing her hair. “Beautiful. From the feel of them, this first wave’s a bunch of greenhorns. Warm you back up.” She raises her hand, and it glows with the teal color of Asha’s magic. Kimani looks into the Fade’s mist and watches it thin, watches a dozen pairs of yellow eyes pierce the fog like insistent, hungry stars.

Kimani lets her magic slip into her hands easily, the green bright and tinged in the red of simple fire. She sighs. The demons are skinny and hungry, their claws new but just as sharp. She bends at the knees, leaning forward, ready.

Then the mist clears fully, the demons come, and they begin to build.

It feels like she’s flying the way she lunges at monster after monster; Her mother’s shout of excitement emboldens her in the midst of three ghouls. She sees Asha whip spells with ease from where she stands, slinging her power with a youthful energy. None of the foul-breath catastrophes gets anywhere near her. Kimani hacks away, her finesse somewhat closer to her chest as she takes pride in simply keeping up.

“Is that how you fight, then?” Asha looks at her sideways as the the tide of demons ebbs, her smile teasing. They cast a barrier to catch their breath. “Perhaps you have truly learned things away from me.”

Kimani sinks into her haunches, body trembling with adrenaline. She smiles into her hands; it’s been too long. “That _can_ _’t_ have been our foundation.”

“Hardly. Just sharpening the tools no? And do you not feel just that much more in-tune to this place? Take a moment.”

Kimani does. A tremor of electricity prickles along her veins, down her spine. It pulses, a fluttering and flighty thing, as if the Fade struggles, is nervous. The Fade’s heartbeat feels like a nervous person’s pitter-pat shaking the air, fadestuff like blood pulsing in their ears. She holds her hands out and feels the strengthening grip and caress of the Fade, the touch that had provoked her at Adamant. Over her skin, and under it,as if tentatively welcoming her back.

And then she feels something else.

“ _Enkidu_. Kimani…”

“ _Oh_. You are very powerful.”

When Kimani opens her eyes, Solas is a bit further away than his voice suggests. And he looks the same, illuminated and wrapped in the Fade like a cloak. “I called for you.”

“I heard.” He comes closer so Kimani can see the way his eyes shine as though they were standing in the dark. “I told you not to search for me.”

“And yet here you are,” she shrugs. The gesture is a lie; unease grips her like ice and she worries that this was unwise. That Solas in the Fade, with her mother, with her and her mother together, is unwise.

Solas beckons behind her, smiling over her shoulder at Asha as he narrows the space between them with a few, slow steps. His magic wafts off of him like a cloying perfume. “I wanted to meet your mother. Messere Lia, the great lady herself. As beautiful as her daughter.”

Asha is ashen; the Fade shrinks away from her, content to skim the surface of her skin like leaves on their way to a more agreeable destination. Her dark eyes grow darker as Solas salutes her.

“To me, Kimani.”

Kimani takes a compulsory, obedient step away from Solas. Solas tilts his head in the arrogant way he has always done. His sharp features bend into a smile.

“Ah. I will tell you this quickly then, young one,” He says briskly. “I believe I have found your relief: you must _use_ the Anchor. The power it gives you. Expel it. Here.” He spreads his arms wide to indicate the Fade. “And in the waking world. If you use it in both of the places it now belongs, I think this will contain it. Even from the Vir’Abelasan.”

Kimani shivers. “I never told you that.”

“ _Elgara vallas, da_ _’len_ ,” Solas croons anyway. “ _Melava somniar mala taren aravas_ …”

“… _ara ma_ _’desen melar,”_ Kimani finishes, sick at how the words spill of their own accord. “I never _told_ you that.”

“We’re done with this,” Asha growls as she wrenches Kimani back, heedless of the way her daughter cries out as she hits the ground. The Fade begins changing, moving erratically as mist and spirits and landcapes begin shifting. She watches Asha close distance to Solas. The tall elf looks down at her, first with an arrogant disbelief. After a moment, Kimani sees his angular face morph in surprise at something she can neither see nor hear.

Both are silent. Both move so quickly Kimani hardly registers: Solas raises his favored casting hand as if to strike and Asha presses both palms against his chest, shoving him roughly with a sharp curse in Rivaini.

Solas only stumbles a few steps back; he’s chuckling as he regains his footing, but the smile disappears as Asha casts a sheet of near-blinding light, some spell Kimani doesn’t know but can feel every inch of as though it had been cast against her and not Solas. It is cold, like ice, and grips like a thousand hands pulling apart. Solas cries out.

Solas, who had raised a hand to her mother.

Solas who, when the light dims, is nowhere to be found.

Kimani doesn’t know where the sound she makes comes from; half-cry, half-grunt, as she sees her mother stand menacingly before empty space, her small, round form heaving as her hands twitch at her sides. Colors still tinge Kimani’s vision as she tries in vain to blink dark spots away, purple and red and yellow to clash and meld with endless green. She climbs to her feet because she can’t just sit there and watch her mother watch nothing.

“What did you do?”

Kimani and Asha stand alone in the Fade. A different looking, different feeling Fade; less fragile, less like if Kimani pulled at the landscape it’d shred beneath her hand. More like how it used to feel. Sturdy and safe and thick, she realizes as the world around them settles. Better.

Asha sways on her feet, eyes closed. “Emergency services, my dear.” When she tilts too far backward, Kimani rushes to catch her. She feels cool, her lips dry, the whites of her eyes streaked with red when she opens them again. Kimani lowers them both back to the ground carefully, stroking her mother’s forehead with trembling fingers though Asha manages to smirk.

“Mama, what did you _do_?”

Asha shrugs, wincing. “I hit your friend hard enough so we didn’t have to fight. Don’t look like that, I’m fine. Just a little over-enthusiastic. Kimani, he is something else.” She coughs, looking up at Kimani with a tired smile. “Wake us up, love.”

“Mama, I don’t understand-”

“Not here. What I’ve put in place will hold, trust me. Wake us up so I can eat and regain my strength. Wake us up, Kimani.” Asha speaks firmly, closing her eyes to wait for her daughter to comply.

Kimani looks to where Solas had stood, just to confirm for a final time that there is nothing to suggest he’d ever been there. Just Fade, as calm and heavy as a storm cloud waiting for its moment.

“ _Patris._ ” Asha’s eyes stay closed, her hands clasping Kimani tight.

She sighs, looking around them once more, and pulls at strings until the dream unravels around them and they go from one plane to the next in slow, dragging pulls of  blending and receding realities. It is better not to pay attention to waking; it always disorients.

They left Galani, Dorian, and Osher on the other side, packed into Asha’s surprisingly small room to wait for them to wake.

When they do it smells like oranges; Dorian appears, holding a slice to her mouth when she opens her eyes, his face soft with relief.

 “Rise and shine and have this fruit, then.”

Kimani croaks a hum as she eats her slice, writhing against the impossibly-soft satin of her mother’s sheets as she comes back into her body. “How long were we gone?”

“A few hours.” Dorian helps her sit up and she looks over at Asha, visibly pale and leaning heavily against Osher as she opens her mouth for another piece of fruit. “Skinner was by. I think Bull put her on watch.”

“Of course he did.” Kimani swings her legs out of the bed and doubles over, hands on her knees. Easier to breathe, this way. She can hear Asha coughing, speaking sharply in Rivaini to the tune of instructions; Osher disappears at her word, but with the way something delicious tinges the air with a hearty aroma, it is likely she’ll return with food.

Galani stands at the foot of the bed, smiling beneath the loose rush of his hair. “Lovely. I trust, since Auntie is looking a bit worse for wear, you were successful in something.”

“Am I the only one worried about my mother’s condition, then?” Kimani looks between her mother and her cousin and the knowing look shared between them. “Ah. Yes. I’m the only worried one. So you expend such energy on a regular basis, mama? _I_ _’ve_ never seen that before.”

Asha laughs hoarsely; she beckons for Galani and holds on to him as she stands, fussing only a little when he simply lifts her into his arms. “Because I never needed to teach you that sort of magic.”

“And why no-”

“It’s seer magic. Actual _mellammu_ , in this case. It is a spirit-barrier, something we, ehm…store inside of us. For emergencies. For the repelling of evil spirits,” she says, waving a hand at Dorian who obeys the silent command; he coaxes Kimani to her feet, dragging one heavy arm over his shoulders. When she looks at him, brow cocked in question, he shrugs.

“But,” Kimani protests as they settle in Asha’s more spacious sitting room, “I thought you never completed your initiation.”

“That’s absolutely correct, I didn’t. But I secure more than a few of the skills before I reneged. _Mellammu_ is exceedingly useful, even for a renouncer such as myself; once you’ve got the hollow in you to carry spirits in the waking world, you can’t exactly un-hollow yourself. It’s always there. Might as well use it.”

“I’m sorry,” Kimani says, pressing fingers against her throbbing temple, “I don’t understand…hollows…”

“Never mind,” Asha says kindly, clapping her hands excitedly when Osher returns with a tray of food. “What you really need to understand is why I did what I did, and what it means for you the next time you Dream. Thank you, Osher. Where is your plate? Gala, Serah Pavus, go and fix yourselves plates and return. Go,” She shoos them away and Kimani helps her settle the tray across both of their laps.

It is a tiny feast; Fried cabbage and green peppers flecked with seasoning, succulent-looking strips of crispy fish, pale beans in a meaty gravy, and mealy, yellow sweet bread with honey. Kimani’s eyes go round; she’d managed to make a fair rendition of the fish and the beans, in Skyhold, but it had never smelled so _good_.

 “Spirits,” she moans happily as the bread melts in her mouth and the fish proves deliciously spicy. For a few quiet moments they eat, hunger growing with each bite before it subsides. Gala brings two bowls of food, a hungry Dorian following behind him with a scowl though he watches and listens as Galani explains the food to him, nodding as he takes a hefty bite.

It’s not until Kimani runs a finger through the leftover gravy on her plate that Asha speaks of important things again.

“That-what and who we saw- was what your friend leaves in the Fade. That was not even the entirety of him,” she begins, swallowing. “I’m not sure if he knew that we knew, but that’s what it was. Which… is impressive. It could remember and provoke, which proves his power, but even the entirety of his essence in the Fade cannot pierce my wall. _He_ cannot pierce my wall.” She sucks oil off of her fingers, kissing her teeth. Settled on her sofa with an empty plate in front of her, she almost seems like a regular woman in retirement. Except for the way her veins jut out of her wrist, her neck, and the words that spill from her mouth.

Kimani holds a hand to Dorian before he overwhelms Asha in the flurry of questions that wrinkle his brow. “You said the _mellammu_ was for the repulsion of bad spirits.”

“Yes, well. Solas has a spirit, doesn’t he? Still counts if his body’s intact. I don’t know if he’s evil, but he is not good; he’s dangerous and happy about it. He smiled when I cast him out, you know.”

Kimani can believe that. “Solas is strange.”

Asha scoffs. “Yes, now he can be strange behind a door he must knock to be let into. I’d wanted us to build them from the ground up so you could see, but that’ll do as well.”

“No,” Kimani insists. “I want you to show me. Then, I can do it myself. Keep myself safe in case the _mellammu_ wears off.”

“Child,” Asha cackles, shaking the tray so her leftover tea sloshes. “It _won_ _’t_. Not for a year, at least. That’s why I look like shit; it takes even longer to build one of those up in the hollow but to be honest, I never needed it. Emergency service, it is. Last resort for practicing seers; I’m not even sure I’m supposed to keep one. But I like to hoard surprises. And I didn’t like the look of that man,” she shudders and picks at the last of her bread. 

Kimani is dumbstruck, nearly angry at her mother’s sacrifice. Given so easily, in the blink of an eye. “You didn’t need to-”

“Oh, we’re not arguing about this,” Asha says simply, eying Kimani out of the side of her vision. “Twenty-three years I’ve given you so little. You are my daughter, my only child, Kimani Patris. I don’t know what sort of trials you have ahead of you, but it’s far past time for me to give you my all. Besides, I can’t exactly take it back.”

And now, Kimani is speechless. And full. And comfortable. And unabashedly vulnerable as her mother says something to Osher and Dorian winks at her, his smirk a subtle blush across his cheeks as he acquiesces to a second helping.

Kimani knuckles away a tear and offers to take their tray into the kitchen. It’s only when she stands up that she realizes something is different. It isn’t the Anchor; that still offers its routine glow and pains, still throbs in the space its= has eaten away. Nor is it the quiet hum of the Well.

 _Mellammu_ is something she wants to know more about; it makes her feel both heavy and light, both here, in the waking world, and there. As though a spirit might appear around any corner. As though the Black City sits high in the sky.

 

But, only in the in-between, in the short hold of breath on the inhale. She breathes out, and she’s back firmly with her feet on solid ground.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If it wasn't explained in this chapter, it's gonna be. This was a long one. Let me know your thinks!


	15. New Shell Praxis

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Iron Bull and those pesky feels. Kimanibull gets cute.  
> And a little frisky.

The Vashoth that Bull meets in the market is not interested in a chat. He doesn’t want to talk and he doesn’t want to talk about why he doesn’t want to talk and Bull leaves with the strangest feeling, knowing this guy knows too much about him.

The Vashoth seems to know on sight that Bull’s from further north than anyone friendly should be. He quirks a white eyebrow and chews on the toothpick jutting from pursed, dry lips. He’s not as old as Bull but he’s a fighter, bare arms cross-hatched in scars. His long hair is split-ended and makes him look like someone’s fairy-tale monster. He’s got a prettier face than Bull, though. And bigger eyes.

He uses them to size Bull up, pass quiet judgment, and dismiss him with little thought. Bull…can’t really argue with that.

“I got made,” He tells Skinner as they make the walk back to Asha’s villa. “There’s nothing to  _make_  and I got made. By a vashoth.” He takes an overly aggressive bite of the apple she’s brought him and its  _delicious_ , which should do more for his mood than it does.

“Different man different shell,” Skinner muses in the slow, deliberate way she speaks, sounding angrier than she is. “You still hold yourself like you always have, but you’re different. You're actually what you were faking to be....different shell. Maybe they look the same but they aren't, not where it counts.

“Right."

“Yeah. You’re a bona-fide honest man, now. Everything’s as it seems, from horns to hideous feet.”

“Okay, I’ve got pretty feet.” Bull smirks when she curses him, but her words are each a sharp, honed edge pressed into his skin, and he needs it. “You mentioned I was quiet earlier.”

She nods curtly. “You have been. Somber, less laughing. Still sharp, but angry about it. Mean to your woman, a little.”

Now, this gives him literal pause; Bull stops in his tracks and waits for Skinner to acknowledge him. When she does, her sharp eyes are full of scrutiny. “Oh, you don’t think so? Let’s count. That little antagonizing on the way here, for one. ‘Bout her parents.”

“Which I apologized for.”

She continues on as if he hadn't spoken. “And before that you…asked her to be executioner before Val Royeaux”

“I’m gonna kill Krem for spilling-”

“-And don’t get me started on the  _actual_  Val Royeaux bullshit. Necessary my ass, you always have a million ways to do one thing and you always choose what hurts the least, when you care. And what’s worse?” Skinner snatches his apple and takes a juicy bite, “You let her think she understood. That's old shell shit, chief.”

Bull scoffs at the way Skinner looks so bored with their conversation. Skinner doesn’t even  _like_ Kimani, not really, only cares as far as Krem and Dalish drag her “for the chief.” But she doesn’t falter. Bull doesn’t think Skinner knows how to.

“I made good on all that,” Bull says evenly, reaching for his apple and growling when Skinner dances back, holding it uselessly above her small head.

“But you did’em.  _You_. You’ve never even been like that to  _me_ , and we all know I piss you off.”

“Like right now,” Bull grunts. Skinner rolls her eyes.

“Listen, if you’re gonna keep her around you should stop with the old shell. Or at the very least, punch a hole to let her get in through till you figure whatever you need to figure out. But…its not like the old shell’s doing you any favors. It doesn't fit as well anymore; you look uncomfortable. Not saying you...gotta wear shirts or forget your skills. But maybe don't be surprised at someone seeing you as Tal-Vashoth when...you _are_ Tal-Vashoth."

Bull shakes his head in amazement, the words dragging over his skin like a length of splintered wood. She's right on that. “Skinner, with the insight.”

Skinner smiles, little more than a flash of her small teeth. “You’re my chief. Truly, now; I’m still not wholly sure what that Dreadnought run meant to you, but I know what it meant to me. I don’t need to owe you, but I choose to, eh?”

 

Bull nearly misses the apple when Skinner tosses it back to him.

 

…

 

The villa has three gardens, Kimani realizes. One for sitting and one for the bees to float lazy and fat over endless flowers, and one for vegetables. Kimani trails in the flower garden, and breathes. She’d weaseled a bit more about the seer “hollows” from her mother, who was dauntingly tight-lipped about the rituals she’d shirked; one could use  _mellamu_  to protect themselves or another, but one probably shouldn’t bestow the gift on anyone but another seer.  _Somniari_  were better than a regular mage but not much better, in this regard.

And so as a result, Kimani would see things for a little while. Asha had been a bit taken aback when Kimani laughed.  _Oh, is **that**  all?_

Now, she takes a deep breath and holds it. The Sun turns into the Black City, a flickering mirage, until she exhales.

 _Did you see that?_  She thinks, calling to the Well of Sorrows half in jest and shuddering when it sings back to her. There is nothing for the Well; It is its own source of knowledge and it is inside of her. There is nothing to be done for it.

“Perhaps I should have given you to Morrigan,” She murmurs, and takes another deep breath. “I don’t know, I don’t know. I suppose, between you and this Anchor, at least you don’t hurt.”

Asha had taken Kimani’s tales in surprisingly easy stride, little more than a gasp or a curse at hearing about darkspawn monsters and ancient elves and dragons and the actual, raw Fade.

…the Fade had actually thrown her for a bit of a loop, asking question after clarifying question until Kimani couldn’t say “I accidentally ripped a hole in the sky and walked the Fade” in any other way.  _You don_ _’t do anything by half, do you?_

The afternoon sun burns hot with a cool breeze that blows through the dress she wears: loose and shapeless and buttoned from bosom to ankle, her arms bare and browning. Kimani turns her face to the sky as she walks, eyes shut and feet firmly on the garden’s path. The Fade flickers on the inhale.

A week, maybe two, and then the  _mellamu_  would settle so well that her lack of hollow would be unimportant. Kimani can imagine how this would frighten a mage, to say nothing of one without magic, to see the Fade in every breath.

 _You think you do your Harrowing, and you_ _’re done. How that must be._ Kimani has never really thought of it. To never know the Fade, to hear or touch or change it. To never consider the eyes in the mist or just what sort of door to form to escape said eyes. To never enter another’s dream and feel the possibility.

How that must be.

 _“_ Kimani in a dress,” Bull calls and Kimani turns to his voice. “I’d say some things, but from what I hear your mother is not one to upset.”

For all of his shtick on following orders, Bull knows how to sidestep them with the ease of a veteran trickster. Which he is. Her chest flutters at the sight of him looking every bit like a kid successful in his mischief; she puts her hands on her hips and pops a hip, and watches him leer.

“Thought I told you to stay away.”

“You did,” Bull nods. “Guess I’ll need to be reprimanded later.”

“Spirits.” Kimani hides behind her hands, blushing harder when he laughs. “You know, then, that we have fixed the problem for now. One of the problems. Solas is effectively locked out.”

“Didn’t doubt it,” He lies. “And you don’t look any worse for wear. What’d it cost?” Bull winds his way through the garden, muttering at the excessive turns of the path until it brings him to her.

Kimani watches him frown as he looks her over; the flickers of confusion twitch his scarred lips when she takes a deep, showy breath. “I fucking stand corrected.”

“You see it, don’t you?” She holds a breath and looks at where he’d be when she exhales; Dorian had confirmed that where she sees the Fade, an observer sees her eyes go empty. Dead-looking. “Don’t be afraid.” She starts, when he grips her by the shoulders, cursing under his breath. “Big’un, please.” Her hands find their way to his chest, stroking soothingly where she knows he’d rather have her hit him with a stick.

“Just tell it.” His voice goes to gravel, gnarled brow furrowed as he sighs.

“Asha put a barrier in place to protect me. It was…a surprise. Solas came…part of him came. We can leave pieces of ourselves in the Fade and his pieces came when I called and my mother cast him out.”

Bull doesn’t look convinced. “Okay…not sure the sleep-stuff will ever make as much sense as the hand stuff.”

“And that’s alright.” Kimani pulls at his harness, rising on her toes to give him a gentle kiss. “Try and think about it like a regular barrier. Except…inside of me…or you know, just trust me for now. I’m alright. It’s a little weird, but I’m alright.”

Bull hoists her up, holding her under her thighs so she’s eye-level with him, and fixes her with his good eye. Frowns heavy and meaningful until she makes a face at him, though the relief doesn’t make it far past his face; he still holds her a might too tight.

“You’re ok.”

“I’m ok,” She agrees, rubbing his shoulders. There’s tension there, and in his face, and in the map of veins jutting from his neck. “But you’re not.”

 

 _Well._ Sun warm on his back, her soft and gentle on his skin, cool, cool breeze; Bull looks into Kimani’s eyes that go dead every breath before blooming again. Whatever she's done to herself clearly hasn't hurt her observation skills.

When it comes to magic he has little choice but to trust her and any anyway, he’s seen her wield. Seen what she can do. Seen her tear things apart and raise his skin in welcome goosebumps with the same green conjure. She is a master both rough and delicate with her weaponry and he trusts her. He has to.

And he loves her, which is another thing entirely. But then, really, it isn’t. To see her at the mercy of her own body, to see magic out of her control, is a fear only rivaled by the daily terror of the potential dissolution of his own control. She explains how Dreaming works and he finds that both of them grasp at strings, no matter how different.

She waits expectantly for him to confess with magic blanking her eyes.

“I…have to change shells.” It sounds dumb, now. Kimani raises her brows when he doesn't say anything more.

“You have to change shells.” She strokes his cheeks. “I have no idea what that means, Big’un.”

So he tells her about the vashoth, and about freakishly insightful Skinner though he leaves out the list of his offenses. About the unease that hangs over him still. About the helplessness, the milling along.

She likes to talk with touch, kissing the bridge of his nose in gentle apology. “Nightmares?”

No, not those. Not so much on the road, where he can focus on everything else. Sleep comes alright, and mornings come clear, his brain turning like a well oiled trap. “How do you think you’d be if you woke up tomorrow, and weren’t a mage?”

A question to shake her, maybe to help her understand what he should have been trying to relay her from the beginning.

Her face; fear flashes like a clap of lightning as she cringes in his grasp. “That would be horrible to me, and…liberating, perhaps. And  _horrible_. But…I don’t think I’d ever choose it. It’s different, has to be, to choose it.”

Bull thinks that’s right. An honest, well thought out choice would be different. Options weighed and ends tied.

His choice was less than that, made back in Qunandar, when re-education echoed hollow and he tried to fill it. He tried. At least he tried. He’d only truly chosen after the decision was all but made, to either dredge along in the life that made him or fall into what tugged mercilessly at his heart from the first time he looked at the Chargers and felt more than camaraderie, to the first time he looked at her and had to quickly look away again.

“I’m working on it,” he says to her. “Just a lot of head-work, a lot of adjustment.”

One day he’s gonna tell her, he thinks, about Seheron and before, and after, and all of it. If they’re still this—and he can see himself still choosing her, years and years from now— and he gathers courage and the stiffest of drinks. He’ll tell her. Until then they burn like wedged pieces of a broken star between his teeth, where they’ll stay.

“You gotta tell me about his face,” Bull says after a while, after all he smells is the garden on her skin and the faint musk of her mother’s house. When he looks over her shoulder and sees said mother watching them from her veranda. Ha, ha, fuck.

“Who, Solas?” Kimani asks against his neck, oblivious to the eyes at her back. “I’m pretty sure mama scared the shit out of him. I…didn’t actually see his face. She might have knocked me down because I wouldn’t get back?”

 _That_ _’s_  an image; Bull pulls back to grin in her face. Never mind the freaky eyes, then, though they chill him to the bone. “Woman after my own heart. Your  _mom_  scared Solas. Damn! That’s a face I’d pay to see. Smug little asshole,” He mutters, remembering with a flash of irritation the things Solas would say. Fuck, he’d wanted to kick his skinny elf ass. “We ever cross paths with him again, I’m breaking his nose. Can’t smirk with a broken nose.”

“Bull!”

“Oh, just try and stop me,” Bull says in mock solemnity. “Always talking shit, and fucking with you? Mine? He’ll be lucky to just walk away with a couple of busted nostrils, please.”

Kimani laughs until tears wet her cheeks as he continues to grumble, mostly for the sake of that full-bellied glee.

In all honesty, Solas had better keep his corporeal form far from him. All Bull really needs is someone to play out his frustrations on. And he’d be perfect.

Fuck, he’d break so nicely.

 

When Bull finally lets Kimani down she sees the small crowd gathered at the house. Asha and Madrigal and Osher, Galani and Dorian who smiles teasingly. Her mother simply watches them, the opinions she hides so well blatant on her sister in law’s face. Osher squints disapprovingly, her mouth pulled in a deep, exaggerated frown as she nods to whatever Madrigal says.

“Hmm,” Bull says, taking her hand when she reaches for him. “Guess that’s the next thing to do.”

“You don’t think they already knew?” Kimani pulls him along, her free hand dragging through the tall grasses as they make for the house.

“Your mom definitely did.”

On the veranda, Kimani’s kin look between her and Bull, then at where their fingers weave together and for a moment, she feels bashful, like a teenager. Like she’s been caught kissing in the Circle library, and she squeezes Bull’s hand until he squeezes back.

“Not much to say I reckon.” Kimani meets her mother’s amused face. “Other than that I love him. He understands Antivan, auntie.”

Madrigal’s  words stutter; golden skin goes red as she looks at Bull, redder when he simply smiles at her.

 Asha regards Bull a long while, scrutinizing every inch of his form and taking Kimani in, too,  before she juts her chin at him, sighing. “Are you good to her, Serah Iron Bull? Are you fair?”

Kimani feels Bull shift behind her. “I think I am, messere. I’m working on it.”

Asha nods, shaking her head when Osher moves to whisper in her ear; the younger woman steps back again, looking to the ground. “And you love her?”

Now he chuckles. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Look, mama.” Kimani pulls the tooth of her necklace out of her dress’s breast pocket, and eyes widen as they look to Bull, recognizing his own necklace. “Now before you faint, we’re not married. It’s like a promise. Not…not necessarily to be married, but-”

“My girl.” Asha comes to them, her smile a relief to them both. She takes Kimani’s free hand in hers. “If you haven't noticed, I am the last person to give a damn about marriage. The rest of our family, however…well, Madrigal and Tavi can only do so much on their own, eh?”

 

Madrigal says something low in Antivan, and Galani bursts out laughing.

 

…

 

It is, in its entirety, a good day. Better than many.

Back at the inn Kimani watches Bull undo each one of her buttons, straddled over his lap and leaned back on her hands, wrists bound with a gray strip of cloth. His boots tap a slow tune on the rough wooden floor as they sit at the foot of the bed; her hands press into the mattress’ edge, already sunken with their combined weight.

She tries to breathe evenly, tries not to hold a breath lest she miss the way his hands dance over her clothes, open to her navel. Ghost images of the Fade tinge the edges of her vision green, but she keeps her eyes on him.

He’s watching his hands at work, smiling as he loosens a next button. “This dress has a lot of damn buttons.” He drags his finger up between the parted pieces of her dress, and Kimani shudders. "And it smells like flowers. I bet you taste like em, too." The both watch his touch slide back down; he slips his fingers beneath the closed clasps of her dress to brush over damp, sensitive lips.

"Slowly," He cautions when she tries to buck into him. "Easy."

Control sets a light burning in him; Kimani can feel the careful way he holds and strokes and squeezes her, how he relishes in each reluctant shudder of her body. He likes to know that a simple touch can undo her, and she likes the anticipation. Likes the quiet discovery on his face as if he didn’t know every inch of her. As if touching her here or rubbing her there produced a surprise each time. As if she were a new surprise each time.

The thought alone is enough to make her melt.

It _is_ a surprise when he lets his fingers part her lower lips, sliding them over her clit to press hard against that frantic pulse; his free hand supports her back when she jolts, when she arches her back and pulls at her restraints as it hits her all at once. She already wants to come, doesn't want to drag it out, but when she tries to rub against his hand he moves with her, robbing her of much wanted friction.

“Fuck,  _fuck_.” Kimani glares openly at him, her hips thrusting to no avail. “Asshole.”

“That doesn’t sound like a request to me.” Bull drums his fingers against her, knowing it only agitates. “You know, you are _really_   wet. Mmm.” He brings a glistening finger to his lips and sucks it clean as she watches, heart thundering in her ears. "I can do this all night, you know, if you want to be stubborn."

She does not. “Rub it,” Kimani rasps immediately, pulling at her wrists. She swallows hard when he leisurely sucks at another finger. “ _Bull_.”

Bull smirks. “Rub it. Rub…what? This?” He replaces his fingers between her legs and presses. “There?”

“ _There_ ,” She hisses, buckling against him. “Right there.”

Bull’s smile bleeds into his voice as his fingers, finally, begin to move. “That’s better.”

 It doesn’t take much, with how tight she’s wound; She pants and comes hard and quick, shuddering against him, fingers scrabbling at each other until Bull covers them with one large hand. Her vision flickers from one world to the next but she only smells him. Her mouth slack against his shoulder, she only tastes him.

It’s not enough release; she wants the feel of his weight pushing her into the bed, wants to feel the strength of his thrusts and let the long, low growls of his pleasure that turn her to jelly. She whines, huffing against him as writhes with the last tremors of her first orgasm.

“Oh, we’re not done,” Bull murmurs into her hair as he frees her wrists, massaging her shoulders. “We’ve got some more yet,  _kadan_. I have to make sure I’m good to you, you know. Make sure I’m fair.”

“Do that.” Kimani nuzzles his beard, squeezing her thighs against him. Hungry, and simpering, and shameless; she is his, and she wants what she wants.

Bull groans as her whispering grows filthier, kissing her roughly as he rolls them over. He lets he pull at his pants, squeezing him over fabric until he's free. “Tempt me if you want, woman," he growls, thrusting against her so she gasps. "We've got somewhere to be in the morning, and I need a _lot_ less sleep than you do."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bull does not have pretty feet.
> 
> We're going to the Rivaini Market next!


	16. All We Have

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everyone goes to the ta-gibil. The squad enjoys the market, while Asha brings Kimani further into the fray. Bann Trevelyan makes a brief appearance literally no one told him to make.
> 
> TW for self-harm as well as drug use at the end of the chapter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The self-harm refers to Kimani seeking pain to counteract seeing her father, in the form of a piercing. For me, it counts as self harm because of the context, and just wanted to let y'all know. 
> 
> The drug use refers to the blood lotus, which we've gone over already.

“We do this for many reasons; to remember home, to make this land remember home and whisper it back to us when our own memory fails. I do this as my own penance. Some come for the same. We all come because it’s all we have.”

There is a market going on, a small gathering of families selling and trading wares where Marchers might come and mingle, but this is not it. Kimani sits with her mother and a number of other people in a brightly painted lean-to set off from the seller’s tents. Beyond the lean-to are the scattered beginnings of small fires for food and warmth and focal point, where families will take rest throughout the day. Not far from the lean-to, nestled amongst the trees, is a stream and around that, Asha says, is another clamoring of Rivaini pampering their hair in the traditional way. In the clearing that stretches to the singular road leading up through the northeast Ostwick estates, children play and young people, bright and flamboyant, congregate.

All of this is on land known to belong to Asha. In truth, the _ta-gibil_ resides on what amounts to but a small swatch of Trevelyan-owned property.

Asha dutifully avoids her daughter’s gaze when Kimani balks. She simply fills Kimani’s hands with roasted, salted seeds and dry meat seemingly spiced with flames. Fire blossoms in tasty bursts as she chews, not enough to burn the bitter bile at the thought of her fire from her tongue, but Asha says this will settle her stomach.

Salt and cayenne-drenched meat; Kimani would never think this a calming agent, but she eats the seeds and the meat and looks around the lean-to instead of pressing a matter she’d rather avoid.

People sit, most leaned toward the singular humming woman near the back of the structure. She’s older than Kimani, but not quite as old as Asha. Her hair falls in neat, dark coils over bronze shoulders; her arms are tattooed in thin bands to her elbows, skin peeking through split sleeves of a green linen dress. The morning chill abates with the small fire kept low by a mage somewhere in the sitting. But Kimani watches the humming woman. She is also a mage but she’s slick with a calm, assured sort of magic. Something doesn’t ring right, because she rings _too_ right.

The woman looks Kimani’s way with dark, distant eyes and seems to see through her. Her face is round and soft as the rest of her, gold glinting beneath her lip and from her  wide nose in a bull’s ring; along the strong bridge of her nose lay a more ornate decoration, a hoop topped with a bent golden bar dripping a blue gem from each end. Her full mouth is painted black, and it brings out the gold tones in her dark skin.

Kimani is breathless but she forces herself to breathe so that the Fade doesn’t obscure the view of this woman.

Asha leans into her to whisper. “Sabol is a seer. _Laraak_.”

“Is she…” Kimani looks around, suddenly nervous at the thought of a proper seer _seeing_ in the open. In Ostwick. “Is she possessed?”

“Not fully. She is communing with her partner spirit. How do I explain it…this is a way to be close to our gods, I suppose. Our spirits. _Laraak_ can touch them in the waking world and through them, we can also be near whether we know magic or not.”

Kimani sees now why Bull and the others were ushered headfirst into the market, led by Nashan, Tavi, and Sed as if they hadn’t disappeared from the villa for a few days. “Does Tavi not pray?”

“This gatherings happens in intervals throughout the day, so that everyone can both commune if they like and take part in the rest,” Asha says, taking a deep, meditative breath. “Tavi prefers later. I like Sabol, I like her spirit. And I mean that in every way; she’s bonded with a _gid_ spirit. Strength. Something I usually need.”

The lean-to is made from many different kinds of wood, fragrant with incense and perfumes of those beneath it. People talk quietly to one another, and Kimani notices the pattern in piercings; she’d seen Nashan had one beneath her lip that wasn’t there before. Asha had the same delicate bull-ring in her nose as Sabol, though the hoop was severed in the center.

“This means something,” she whispers, gesturing to Asha’s piercings.

“Yes. Let’s them know I trained as _laraak_ , but did not finish. Students, as it were, wear them until they are complete, and then they are given a whole ring in the way of Sabol. Beneath the lip is nothing distinctly special; nearly everyone in Rivain has one, like earrings and nose rings. But this,” she taps at her jewelry, “and that,” she nods towards Sabol, tapping her own empty nose bridge. “Are particular.”

Asha grows quiet, smiling, and Kimani nudges her to tell.

“That’s for _mulki,_ for dreamers _._ ”

Sabol’s far-away eyes fall on Kimani and she holds her breath so she can stare, properly, back at another like her.

 

…

 

Ostwick is not a haven for Rivaini; there are no permanent _ta-gibil_ in the city-state and between the rest of the Marches there are only a handful of spaces in which one may walk and know they walk into Rivaini-adopted territory.

 The Free Marches, for all of their promise, are often the passing-through point for any Rivaini looking to find a new place to take root; many who leave the homeland prefer Antiva, Nevarra, Tevinter Imperium. But, some brave the land of the dog-lords by imagined birthright.

 Queen Asha Campana wished for her people to root everywhere. If the Chantry, thrice-cursed to the void as it is, would run them from their homes then, well.

They would indeed be everywhere else.

 _Kasadu, talamu enir_ is the welcome chant whichever way one enters _ta-gibil_ ; it slips through the collision of nondescript tents over elaborate stands and well-decorated people; it permeates the streams of Rivaini that trickle onto this patch of clearing directly north of Asha’s villa. The grass is high and luminous with early morning dew, dampening their boots and breeches. Morning smells like petrichor and the promise of fried sweets and dripping, tender meat. Morning smells like a swell of decorated Rivaini people in their favorite perfumes, hair freshly oiled, descending onto their _ta-gibil._ Bull, Sera, Skinner, and Dorian follow a bouncing Nashan and the rest of the villa residents into the fray.

Bull has personally only ever been to Llomerryn, and only passed through, but his friend Our Sten would teach them Rivaini in the downtime on Seheron. He knows more words than Kimani, and he’d taken his time on the Crime Island to see if anything he’d learned stuck (it had), but he’s still struggling with some of the more rapid chatter. Doesn’t really matter, so long as they give him the routine “Well _shit_ ,” look and go about their business. Which, he realizes, the Rivaini are pretty good about.

The market hits them in a wave of smell and sound: heating oil tested with flecks of fragrant batter that sizzles promisingly, fruits split open to lure hungry patrons thicken the air with sweetness. Pepper, meat, and ash shoveled out of small stoves glowing red from within mix with dozens of nameless fragrances worn by decorated Rivaini; They can _dress_ , the pride in their attire not so austere as Ferelden or overt as Orlais. And certainly, Rivaini fashion in Rivain held its own flair; here, every smart silhouette or freely slung scarf, every color or pattern was deliberate and responsible for keeping balance. Fine tunics marrying Marcher tailorings and Rivaini insignia lay smooth over trousers, skirts, and leggings in rich colors and fabrics. They twist and braid and roll the coils and curls of cloudy hair into designs that impress, they oil brown skin until it sheens. Humans and Elves and a smattering of dwarves walk about in the same shapeless dresses Asha had given Kimani with buttons from bust to ankle, embroidered with flowers, shapes, celestial bodies, great creatures with smiling faces that make Bull’s skin crawl. Especially the ones with horns.

“Close your mouth, Teacup,” Tavi says, appearing beside him so quietly Bull wants to congratulate her. She’s one to talk. Her attire is just as fine; a silken tunic  with split sleeves, embroidered in muted reds and golds that nearly hits her knees. Her pants, too, are mauve and beaded along the calves. Gold in her nostril and beneath her lip, hair pulled back, shimmering crimson with braided-in thread.

He wants to congratulate her on this, too. On looking so nice. Instead, he laughs. He’d made the mistake of likening his harmlessness to a teacup when Tavi glared into his face this morning.

She’d said, _So you_ _’re the big shit bedding my niece enough to be relevant._

Kimani had choked on air, and Bull had to bite back what could have been the comeback of the trip because aunt Tavi might not be a mage, but she has an air about her that gives him pause. Tama shit, the way she stood and _dared_ him. He felt sheepish.

Hence the teacup comment.

He’d forgotten she was also Nashan’s mother, but he sure as fuck remembered when that telltale glint in her eye liked to blind him.

“It’s a sight, messere,” he says to her now, “I’ve, uh…been to Rivain but only in passing. Nothing so nice as this.”

Tavi scoffs. “Hard to believe. Where in Rivain?”

Maybe he shouldn’t have mentioned it, but it is better small talk than most. “The island-”

He can’t get the whole sentence out before Tavi snorts, pursing her lips at him. “Of course you “passed through” the Murder Island, of course you did.”

“Didn’t murder anyone,” He tries, pleased when Tavi loses against the laugh pulling at her darkened mouth.

“Yes, well. You’re too covered in scars for that to be any sort of comfort.” It seemed to be the style, lips darkened near-black and understated chiffons decorated in colored thread, of some of the middle-aged people. Tavi’s got ten years on him at least. She doesn’t _look_ ten years older than him, but she has to be.

 The heavy smell of tea-tree and olive oils tinge the air as people with freshly-braided plaits filter past the slow-moving, miniature Inquisition and their tour guides; Sera chortles in excitement, colliding with Dorian as she bounces along. Nashan, reunited with her teacher, hangs from Dorian’s arm as she chatters, pointing out different wares and people of interest. By the end of the day, Dorian would have a better grip on these politics than anyone. Bull keeps that in mind just because.

Sed- who reminds Bull of Solas if only in the straight, severe way he walks- waves them over to a fruit stand, its owner a grinning man with sandy skin and heavy features, two rings splitting his full lower lip.

 He’s got all this fruit with ugly, gnarled rind and bright orange meat that smells like flowers.

“ _Muskmelon_. I was _made_ out of muskmelon as a child,” Nashan says, holding out pieces to both him and Skinner, who Bull thought would be gone on her own by now. “It is the absolute best thing.” Dorian takes up a piece and sniffs before taking an exploratory bite; if the picky Vint likes it, his mustache wet with juice as he chews gleefully, then it must be good.

Damn it, it _is_ good. Bull slurps the juice before it can spill and takes another monstrous bite. He turns to Skinner and sees the melon smeared over her little mouth; it’s hard for her scowl when she’s happily munching, but damn it if she doesn’t try. For a second, he thinks they’re thinking the same thought: _Dalish would love this._

“So,” Bull starts,“Just how do they plant those mustymelons…”

“ _Musk_ melons.”

“Right. Could you…grow them in the mountains? The Frostback Mountains, to be specific.

“Certainly someone in the garden could figure it out. I mean, we only need so much elfroot on a plot that size…” Dorian wipes his mouth, holding the empty rind as if the fruit would regenerate.

“I never worked the land but I know a few tricks…” Bull shrugs, eying that stand. Maybe…maybe two more melons. Dorian and Skinner could share one.

“Save the seeds on the next ones” Sed laughs, licking juice from his fingers before tossing Bull a small bag. “Even if you can’t grow anything, you can roast those and they’re even tastier.” 

Bull hustles everyone’s seeds, promising Sera he’d roast some when they got back to the inn but then she shrieks when the seller mentions he’s got a few flavors of roasted melon seeds to sell, too.

Naturally, Sera buys five bags and immediately hides them on her person, content. Bull ties his little bag of seeds to his belt, next to his daggers. He’d left the maul, but the day he left his bedroom without a weapon on his person was a day that’d never come.

“Kimani was fond of muskmelon as well, as a small child. Doubt she’s had any since being taken away,” Tavi muses, her look meaningful before deliberately shifting her attention to Dorian. To see, no doubt, how he measured up as well. The Antivan and Galani would be returning from the docks by lunch, which is more than enough time for Tavi to sniff Dorian out.

Bull’s still not sure either of the men know what’s going on between them (If its hard to get a read on Kimani sometimes, Galani’s at least twice as bad). But if it keeps going on, if it goes further, well. Bull thinks Dorian deserves a good guy, someone just as sharp and mouthy. They’d make a pretty pair, even if only for a little while.

But that’s on his list of Things Not To Meddle In, so he takes Tavi’s hint and buys enough melons that the seller gawks as he hands them over. Bull swings the sack over his shoulder and follows his little crowd of people, enjoying how the heavy smells of druffalo meat and honey and ash cloy in his nose.

Bull likes the market. Bull likes how it makes him feel; almost like he can forget himself, and still keep himself. This place is not escape. It’s an anchor. Bull feels it in his bones.

…

Noontime is warm and friendly, and Kimani spoons a snack of buttery rice and druffalo sausage from a bowl, savoring the spices and liberally added sauce that makes her eyes water. After the lean-to, they’d watched some children fly kites until the rudimentary things tangled and crashed. An elf Asha knew had caught them just as they walked into the market, dragged them to another elven face, and pushed food into their hands with an invitation to their fire in the evening. The Rivaini Dalish are exquisite; Kimani tries not to stare at how beautifully vallaslin designs are braided and shaved into elaborate styles or how artfully placed piercings make their smiles glitter. They speak quickly and warmly when the recognize Asha,  their language dancing between Rivaini and elven and trade words, and slang Kimani doesn’t understand. But they kiss her cheeks when she’s introduced as Asha’s daughter; if they know she is the Inquisitor, they don’t seem to care very much. Maybe on a different day they would, but the next few days are precious. Many things got left for once the little patch of land was clear until the next gathering.

 “All of this is preservation,” Asha says fondly, sipping a cool, red drink. “I might have forsaken my home but I can try to recreate it for some people, here.”

“Did you start this _ta-gibil_?”

Asha shakes her head. “I revived it. Brought our Dalish back into the fray. I…I’d failed in so many things, Kimani. And my career at the opera house was waning. I had money, I had my home, but I needed something. And I figured, since I wouldn’t go home even if I weren’t bonded to your father, I could make that something here.”

Something indeed; inside the _ta-gibil_ it feels like it goes on for miles in every direction. People greet and chat and argue as if they’d been doing these things for generations, and only the players had changed. It feels old and full of history, but if Kimani counts correctly, Ostwick’s _ta-gibil_ isn’t yet ten years old.

She lets a small, pudgy child dart between them before taking her mother’s hand. “You haven’t failed.”

“Ah,” Asha shrugs, but doesn’t pull away. “I’m not searching for your sympathy my dear.”

“The _ta-gibil_ is magnificent, then. That’s simply an observation.” She sees Bull through the open-back of a stall and smiles to see them all settled at a table, eating food still steaming. Sera’s laugh rushes into the air, seconds before anyone else gets the joke. “I wonder how the permanent settlements look.”

“You might ask Galani to show you the places in Ferelden where he found refuge.”

Kimani smiles weakly, remembering the anger in her cousin’s eyes when she’d suggested he might stay on at Skyhold. “I don’t think Galani will be returning to Ferelden with me. Maybe he’ll go back with his mother.”

At this, Asha stops them in the middle of the path, uncaring of the traffic they make. “He’s not going back to Rivain, love.”

“But-”

“He cannot.” Asha sighs. When the third person brushes her rudely, she pulls Kimani aside, against the high wall of a stall. “He is dead, no? He should stay dead to Rivain. Already it is risky for his mother to know, but I couldn’t lie to Madrigal. She is my sister; blood couldn’t make us closer. Spirits help my poor brother.” Her hands press against her chest as she grimaces.

Kimani shakes her head; She had neither asked Galani about Dairsmuid, nor had he offered much of anything to her. Everything she knew was memory of a letter, and Nashan’s tearful rendition from afar. “What would happen?  Its been years.”

Whatever it is, it lingers still; Kimani fidgets beneath Asha’s gaze, uneasy and determined.

“Galani was one of First Enchanter Rivella’s closest colleagues. He was a target as much as Rivella was, and he surely maintains information that would put him in danger.”

“But with who, mama? With no Circle, what is it that’s so important?” _And with a mage as Divine, with Vivienne, what could they do?_ Kimani wants to say, but she has yet to hear word of the Divine’s actions since leaving Skyhold. A blissful silence, and an uneasy one.

 Asha cracks the knuckles of one hand, sighing again. “We are a country of the wrong color and creed; as the Chantry says magic exists to serve man, _we_ say that man exists at magic’s behest. We serve each other. We rule together. Even the non-mages; the ways we believe are connected to the Fade, do you understand?”

“Of course.” Kimani remembers her mother’s old lectures, half-forgotten and muddled by time. “Of course, but what does that have to do with Galani? He doesn’t trust me; I am part of the Chantry, as Inquisitor and friend of the Divine. For a moment I thought he might…”

But Asha has stopped listening; she stares into the flow of market traffic, her hand finding and weaving against Kimani’s as she frowns. She squeezes Kimani’s hand too tightly. “Shit. I told him not to come.”

Kimani looks, and freezes. Truly; she feels the cold creep up from her feet like streams of iced blood, chilling her from the inside out until it takes a grip on her fluttering heart.

She has always thought, save for her hair, that she resembled most her mother. Same nose and mouth, same sloping, somber eyes. Not the same color, lighter, but this she gives to her father as well as her eyes; skin copper instead of umber, eyes honeyed hazel instead of steady, steady dark.

Hazel eyes stare back at her from an old, tawny face; the sun’s been gone so long from the Marches that he’s more pale than she remembers him. He’s rounder, as well. But that is her father.

Kimani draws herself up to her full height, unraveling from Asha and clutching her hands behind her back as if the stance will lend her any strength. She can see her strength fade away.

Yes. That is her father.

Twenty year-old memories: _white-spun hair to her elbows pulled back into her father_ _’s lap as he soaks it with oil and pulls the bone comb through. Ends first, traveling upwards until they war with the tangles curled close to her scalp. He does this once a week and at the end of each session he gives her a small bar of chocolate. It is near-black and tastes bitter; Kimani pushes the entire thing into her mouth and grimaces until its gone. Bitter, sweet, chalky for minutes after the last trace of confection is gone. She decides these are the moments she likes her father best._

_She is a 9-year-old mage of insurmountable control. There is never an incident of misplaced magic on the Trevelyan estate in the 11 months that she resides on its grounds. Not counting the charred spine of the rocking chair in her room; no one saw, smelled, or heard it, and so it remains an unknown mystery never to be solved. Kimani shows her father the magic once, and is comforted when he does not flinch at the fire licking the air around her knuckles. The control is impressive, but reflexive; Kimani simply knows that if she is good, if she can keep her power about her, then she might be able to go home. Mama had not said this, but 9-year-olds tend towards hope._

_When the templars come for her, her hair is twisted and pinned into so many little, shiny knots. Wire flowers decorate it; they glint in the sun as she_ _’s taken away; her father had spent the entire morning laughing with her as they wound the jewelry into her hair. He doesn’t laugh or cry or do anything but watch her be led away by strange solider._

 _On the road, The templars are gentle in the way fearing men try gentleness; they are less gentle when one of their torches bursts into flames just after they call her_ _‘little monster.’ By the time they make it to Ostwick Circle, her hair is a mess. One of the apprentices helps her take her hair down. Marquesa helps her cut it._

Bann Soren Trevelyan takes one step forward and Kimani flinches so violently that he stops again. Her hands grow too hot in her gloves but she leaves them on, rubbing leather palms against her breeches as she breathes through a flared nose. One thing at a time, she’d told Dorian. But now, she cannot.

Her father’s face is crestfallen, cracked with guilt. He looks to Asha, but Kimani doesn’t see what her mother gestures back. When he finds her gaze again there is resolve. And still, he waits.

Her curtsy is low and she holds it for one shuddering breath before straightening herself. Polite; she waits patiently for her father to return the gesture. He blinks, face twisting even further into pain of his own making, but he bows low and stately. His eyes are red when he recovers. Kimani doesn’t care.

Noontime is warm and friendly and brings a flurry of activity to the _ta-gibil_ ; Kimani finds it easy to simply turn on her heel and get swept away into the little chaos.

…

 

It turns out that Sabol is not extremely friendly but she helps when Kimani asks if there is a place in the _ta-gibil_ to get “that piercing.” She points rudely to the dreaming Seer’s jewel but she doesn’t care, and neither does Sabol. The Seer loiters not far from the lean-to and smokes a pipe carved like a bluebell. Something about Kimani’s reddened eyes makes her scowl, but it also has her offering the pipe, which Kimani turns down on principle; she smells the blood-lotus and wants it. It’d be less painful than having a needle jammed through her face, but it would do more damage. Set her back a thousand steps.

The woman points her in the direction of the market piercer named Mili, and blows a cloud of smoke large enough to disappear into.

Kimani picks a gold ring topped with a thick, golden bar that Mili promises will lay across the flat angle of her bridge. On each end of the bar a small, sharp ruby winks at her like bright droplets of blood. She pays the piercer and lay back along the reclining contraption at the center of the low tent. A personal tent; cloak and foodstuffs and cooking utensils crowd a corner, a space for fire cleared just outside for later. A few toys suggests Mili has a child.

They warn of acute pain and Kimani doesn’t tell them that this is exactly what she wants. She simply nods like one who hears the list of ways getting stabbed through the face would hurt like shit and finds it worth the trouble.

Mili is paid and happy at least to have something to do; they lance Kimani with little preamble and the pain is singular. Bright, hotter than Haven falling to ash around her, as sharp as a demon talons marring her shoulder. All from a small, long, needle pushed through with skilled strength.

Kimani shouts once, gripping the rests of the seat, breath caught so the stars in her closed eyes turn to Fade until she breathes out again. One lung-deflating sigh as good tears streak her temples. But it is delicious, a wildfire that leaves her clear, and she curses as another throbbing wave of it grips her. All she can think is _oh fuck, oh fuck_ , _that helps_ , and she realizes in a flash of clarity that she’s begun taking after Iron Bull.

And then she realizes that he’s become a bit less like himself. But then the next wave of pain is all she knows.

Kimani doesn’t register that Mili is a mage until they lay a finger on either side of the wound so that healing magic flows through her like a cool spring. She shivers until their hands fall away.

“That should do it, serah.” Their eyes are sad because Kimani shed more tears before the piercing than after.

That should do it. Kimani touches the swollen bits of her nose gingerly, sliding off of the contraption with quiet thanks to Mili. Not ten paces from the tent is a small crowd of young people wide-eyed at her new jewelry and what it means, but she brushes past them.

Sabol looks surprised to see her again, but the woman hasn’t moved from her spot in the grass. Kimani produces a small bag of freshly ground blood lotus petals and hands it to her. “I’d sit here with you, if that’s alright. I’ll be quiet. Won’t even look at you.”

“Unless you’re a pain monger with no respect for tradition, I’d say we truly have something in common.” Sabol’s accent is so thickly Marcher that Kimani doesn’t even think she’s from Ostwick.

Kimani shakes her head. “I am not a pain monger with no respect for tradition, _ahat_.”

The endearment seems to have no effect on the seer. “And yet, I do not know you. So why would you sit with me?”

 _Because you_ _’re like me. Because you’re not my mother. Because I don’t know you and you don’t know me and so won’t give me pity. Oh, Kimani. It’s alright, Kimani._

“You remind me of something I’m trying to be, I guess. And you won’t talk to me. Which is good, because I don’t really want to talk.”

Sabol grunts. She lifts the gift of lotus to her nose and sniffs; the way her brow quirks and her eyes dart to Kimani lets her know she’s pleased at the quality. Perhaps blood lotus was given to her too early, too young, and she can’t truly know anything else. Perhaps _nesomni_ is not to her liking. Shit, maybe being as seer and a dreamer is more than _nesomni_ can manage.

But it isn’t her business. Not even in the slightest.

Sabol eventually pats the ground next to her. “Sit, _ahatki_. Before we sit quiet I will say that your piece looks good.  The red suits you, or perhaps it is your sad eyes, I don't know. That's all."

The seer presses a bit of fresh lotus into her pipe and lights it on fire with her finger.  She offers Kimani a drag for the second time and after a moment of hesitation, is denied again. The smell of the smoke is enough to keep Kimani company as she watches the wind sway tall grass, and kids wrestle in the field. 

Within the hour Skinner is sent after her, which is just as well because Skinner doesn't like talking either. The disgruntled elf hoists a small muskmelon from her bag and hands both it and a knife to her, so she cuts the nostalgic fruit into fours and gives a piece to Sabol. 

It earns her what Kimani thinks is a rare smile from the most beautiful woman she's ever seen before she and Skinner return to the market.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just think about how happy Kimani's gonna be when she sees her boyfriend bought her like fifteen pounds worth of cantaloupe though. 
> 
> Glossary:  
> Kasadu, talamu enir - A greeting wishing light. Semi-formal.  
> Ahat/ki - Sister/little sister. Term of endearment.


	17. Heart of the Many

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kimani and Bull are called to their responsibilities, marking a temporary end to some things and the begrudging beginning to others. ~vague chapter summary~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is smut. 
> 
> TW for very brief suicide mention near the end.

She stays near the inn for two days, and the nights are long. Dreamless. She watches people in the tavern and makes the inn keep laugh in a fit of dry wit, and he sends her a drink deep red and bitter, on the house. She sings along with the in-house bard, happy enough for anyone other than Maryden, and makes a temporary home of her barstool. The fountain just outside of the inn glitters best at noon, and she throws old bread at pigeons. Bull brings her bread from his wanderings. Bread and funny rocks and more cantaloupe. A silk scarf covered in pink flowers.

She feels peaceful.

Asha pretends to understand; “I understand, dear,” she says, but it’s not true. There’s no way she _can_. Asha had forgiven Soren an unforgivable thing. They had built life and legacy, no matter how unseemly, in this city. And Kimani had thought she could be beyond that particular hurt.

“I would kill an army over my child,” Kimani says on the third day as she and Dorian and Sera share a small table in the corner of the inn’s tavern. She’s taken a pint of ale and laced it with _maraas-lok_ , so the burn in her throat is on the right side of painful. “I would raze a city to the ground for my child, magic or no magic. How does a man stand and watch his child be taken? How does a mother let their child go? How does a _mage_ mother let their mage child go, knowing what will happen?”

Sera takes a gulp of ale to wash down her bread, her fingers stained by the jam she’d spread over it. “More parents than not are shite. Even if they don’t mean it. Not that it matters much, meanin’ it or not. Kid’s hurt either way.”

Dorian grunts in agreement. “Hear hear. The moment you realize they value something more than you, when it matters, it is not a good feeling.”

“But I _knew_ ,” Kimani insists, taking a throat-bursting chug of ale. “I knew they loved each other more than me. They _better_ , if they were going to let me go.”

“You knew in other places. But in days you’ve fallen back into everything at once. Frankly, it’s too much.” Dorian’s smile is apologetic. “And before you go on about walking the Fade, defeating a darkspawn, et cetera, it is entirely irrelevant. You are a human with a broken heart and as such, what you feel follows.”

It’s Sera’s turn to nod, though she’s caught in the sway of a hard-bodied woman’s hips as she enters the tavern. Wordlessly, Kimani switches seats with her to facilitate a better view.

“I’ve done what I came to do,” She says firmly, tapping her finger against the butt of the pepper shaker. “Solas is, for the moment, behind a very strong wall. The Well has been as quiet as usual. The Anchor, again, nothing worse than usual. Maybe it’s time to go.”

“Kimani-”

“No, I don’t want to deal with this. You’re right; it’s too much. I’ve barely slept in two days, to say nothing of dreaming. I keep crying.” She’s on the verge now, old memories rolling through her mind’s eye as easily as they please. “I’m tired. I’m wearing down. I let someone jam a _needle_ through my face rather than speak to my father, I…”

“ _Inquisitor_ ,” Dorian says harshly, and Kimani startles to attention. A small, elven woman stands at the end of their table, dressed in Nightingale uniform. She stands at attention, simply waiting, silent as the grave until Kimani nods.

“A message from Skyhold, ser.”

“Deliver it,” Kimani sighs, reaching for the missive that the agent hands her.

_Conflict between Divine Victoria and the rebel mages Skyhold, regarding the re-establishment of Circles:_

Kimani skims through the missive to the point of interest for her right this moment: time frame for her return. Leliana was kind enough to make the information distinct enough to catch on a first look.

“Alright,” Kimani says, feeling the shell of her position re-harden over her skin like clay. She looks at the agent. “You can relay to Leliana that I’ll be back within timeframe; I’ll leave Ostwick no later than three days from tomorrow. Naturally, we’ll be taking the Imperial Highway. My trip was successful in all other aspects, and I’ll be back to work directly upon arrival. Did I miss anything?”

The agent nods. “We’ll be wanting to know what course of action to take in the meantime regarding decree the mages be released from their conscription.”

“Tell’em it can’t be dissolved by anyone but me. And I’m not there yet. So Vivienne will have to hold on to her holy breeches.” She smiles when the agent does, shrugging. “Has the fighting gotten worse?”

“Of a certainty, in Orlais. But the Divine is expected to conquer.”

“ _Of a certainty_ , indeed,” Kimani echoes. “It’s Vivienne. Thank you. If that’s all…”

“No, ser.” The agent produces another missive. “This is from Lieutenant Aclassi, for Captain Iron Bull.” She hands it over.

Kimani runs her finger over the Chargers’ rosy seal. “I’ll make sure he gets it.”

Finally, the agent nods and excuses herself, slipping from the inn as discreetly as she’d come. Kimani looks at Dorian and Sera, sighing.

“I guess there’s nothing to deliberate anymore. We must go.” She stands, inching out of their corner, fighting to keep balance as fire churns in her belly. “Gonna make sure the Captain gets his letter.”

Dorian simply frowns at her, shaking his head as she turns away from them and goes upstairs.

 

 

Another day passes before Kimani returns to Asha’s villa. The tiny estate still feels very much both mystery and memory, warped so that it will always be a little foreign to her. But, this is the way of things. Not everything can be fixed.

“I’m not angry,” Kimani says before Asha can speak. “It’s too much work. And I want to visit you again, when next I can.”

“You’re leaving.”

“Yes, it’s time for me to leave.” Galani and Nashan had both been informed the morning after she received her missive, where Kimani had made it clear they could come to Skyhold anytime they wished. Always welcome. “Conflict in Orlais is reaching my doors, and I need to tend to my responsibilities.”

Asha nods furiously. “Of course.” She takes a drink of cold rose tea, tart with lemon, and Kimani follows suit. They sit out in the small garden where they had been the first day, a lazy breeze chilling where the sun threatens hot.

“I’m glad I came,” Kimani tries, looking out into the trees. “I’m glad, mama.”

“I meant for him to stay away. Until you explicitly mentioned him. I wouldn’t have let him roam knowing you were there,” Asha says softly. “But he has never stopped being a man of his own mind.”

“And heedless of the pain he causes.” It slips sharp through her teeth before she can catch it. Silence is a dead weight dropped between them for a held breath.

“It’s easier for you to only blame him.”

Kimani looks at her mother now. Asha looks tired, guilt lining her eyes and graying her skin. She wears no adornments in her hair and no cosmetics; the lacquer on her nails is the only adornment, and it shines in spite of her, brick-red, as she taps her nervous energy out against her teacup. In contrast, the mirror had confirmed that Kimani met the day as near to an Inquisitor as her packed wardrobe could manage. The right side of severe. Her only give is the bear-jaw necklace worn over her jacket.

She doesn’t mean for them to end this way, really. “I want to forgive. I want to.”

“I know, my sweet girl,” Asha says sadly, “But forgiveness hurts more.”

Kimani knows. “Was there ever a moment that I was first in your heart? Where you loved me more than him?” _Where you would have killed armies for me, or razed cities?_

The idea of such a love is a dream, the only dream she’s never been able to touch. No strings to pull apart, or together.

Asha lay her hands on the table palms-up. Both women steel their jaws and stare at each other with the same, sad eyes.

“You…were the _most_ beautiful thing I’d ever seen when you were born,” she whispers tearfully. “You looked just like your aunt Nashan for the longest time, just like the face of our family. I hoped to the gods that you would not be a mage, because I had sworn against returning to the only place you’d be safe. And then you walked into my dream like a specter. Like me. And I made you a victim of my transgressions.”

“Mama-”

“I love you with the whole of my heart,” Asha continues, shaking her head as her voice breaks. “And it still wasn’t enough. I still chose what was easier. I was _still_ a coward and I cannot fix this.” Finally, she cries freely into her hands, trembling as she sobs.

Kimani blinks away tears, sitting stone still until the urge to lay down and weep passes. She forces herself to breathe even and slow, lets go of the teacup before she crushes it or burns it or throws it against a column.

The gift of _mellamu_ has settled well inside of her; soon, once she can trust her emotions again, she will return to the Fade and examine it.

There; she breathes calmly enough to trust her voice. Kimani stands, pushes in her chair gingerly, and walks around the small table to her mother.

“It was good to see you,” Kimani murmurs, stroking Asha’s cheek when she looks up. “And it will be good to see you again.” The woman’s eyes are bloodshot; her mother looks old. “I will write to you, once I’ve made it back to Skyhold.” She leans down to kiss her forehead. “Thank you for your gift.”

“I would give it again and again. It will protect you,” Asha says, grabbing Kimani’s marked hand and kissing her knuckles swiftly. She stays seated, subdued. “And you protect yourself, Kimani Patris.”

“I will,” she promises. “Look for my letter, mama.”

She latches the gate to Asha’s villa behind her when she leaves.

 

...

While Kimani’s letter sends her back, she learns that Bull is staying behind. The Chargers are on their way, and have a job or three waiting for them further in the Marches.

So the two of them are a little clingy.

“Idiot,” she giggles, clutching him to her as he grumbles between her breasts. “Get out of there.”

They’d spent dinner again in the tavern, playing cards until Sera’s winning streak soured everyone to their rooms before the rogue took all of their money.

 _I don_ _’t even like cards_ , Kimani whined, laughing when Bull threw her over his shoulder. She’d only had one mug of wine before her cup disappeared.

 _That_ _’s just cus you’re bad at them_ , Bull said, tossing her on the bed. _And you won_ _’t let Sera teach you._

Sera would take all of her money, would teach Kimani how to better let Sera take all her money, then claim the treasure for Red Jenny. Or bees en masse.

“It’s nice here,” Bull says now. “I can hear your heart.” His breath is hot on her skin. “And, fantastic tits on both sides of my face.” He shakes his head and rumbles, and Kimani snickers, slapping the top of his head as she wriggles out from under him, rolling off of the bed.

“You have an obsession.”

“Guilty.”

Her stomach aches with laughter and not enough food, but she doesn’t feel like eating; she slips the rest of the way out of her unbuttoned blouse, locating the breast-band he’d expertly unraveled, and folds them away. Once she rids herself of her trousers she does the same to them, putting them where Bull has laid his own.

Bull watches her from the bed. He’s thinking, but his eye tracks her. “You know what you’re going to do about Viv?”

“She will have to march on Skyhold herself to take mages who don’t want to leave,” Kimani says with a rush of ferocity. Bull cocks his head at her, and says nothing. “But it won’t come to that. We’ll come to some accord. She must honor the conscription in any case until I get back.”

“Please don’t fight the Divine, Kimani,” Bull says grabbing her and pulling her to him when she tries to slip past. “Cus you’ll do it for reasons outside of where the rebel mages should end up, and it’d be brutal. She’s Divine Victoria, and if it’s a battle of the mages, they _still_ like her more than they like you.”

Kimani rolls her eyes and smiles as he gives her a stern look. “I will appease the Iron Lady so she leaves the rebel mages alone. I’m not going to fucking fight _Vivienne,_ _”_ She promises, fingers tracing over his features before untying the strip of leather around his horn that keeps the eye patch in place; she strokes the scars as he holds her close.

“And you said goodbye to your mother.”

No. “I didn’t. I didn’t say _goodbye_. I will visit again,” Kimani says firmly, and Bull quietly nods, running his hands over her hips.

“Okay.”

She leans into him, sighing, and they stay like that, arms around each other as they grow loud in their own heads.

 And then she’s licking into his mouth as he presses her into the bed, panting at the urgent way he thrusts against her. Her smalls are gone, pulled away between standing between his legs and ending up back on the bed; she shudders at the bold slide of skin on skin, feels herself rush wet against the hot, hard length of his because she’s needy, too.

Bull has her pinned; he stretches her arms high above her head and sucks bruises into her neck, biting over her collarbone, her shoulder. Kimani lets out a low groan at the sharp stings of pain, the sudden, bursting wave of desire, his heat and weight holding her still to take the maddening way he slides his cock along the wet seam of her. Her hips buck of their own accord, and the friction makes her eyes roll.

“Big’un.” She trembles as he replaces his teeth with careful, soothing lips. He does not release her arms but he kisses her chin and both cheeks, looking her in the eye as he gently kisses her lips.

“ _Kadan_.” He drags those kisses back down over her neck, sucks her nipples into his mouth one by one and moans when she whimpers, sensitive. Kimani arches against his touch, each breath trailing off into a whine as she falls beneath the insistent wave of his devotion.

She more than trusts him with acts beyond simple, impassioned spontaneity, but this is an intensity they often build to. He feels frantic, the way he clutches at her with his free hand, something he doesn’t give so wantonly.

A sharp bite brings her out of her thoughts; Bull stares at her from where he has his mouth on the soft rise of flesh beneath her navel.

“Stay with me. We’re almost there.”

His mouth on her cunt snaps the band of tension he’s strung in her and she cries out, realizing her hands are free and holding tight to his horns as he spreads her legs wide. He sucks at her hard and slow, his tongue a maddening thing until she comes harder than expected, words caught in her throat as she shudders.

He gives her little time before pressing her back into the bed, kissing her swollen mouth as she tries to catch her breath. His hand between them drips with oil and he slicks them further with it, coaxing her legs around his waist.

Kimani lifts her hips to him, grip tight in his hair so he winces. “Closer.”

When he enters her it is music, a duet of impassioned sighs as he seats himself deep.

“Shit, _kadan_. My heart,” he says, kissing her as he begins to move. “My heart. You blur the lines of me.” He pins her arms over her head again and she’s compliant; points of control and points of anchor, he speaks words that split him open and he needs to hold on to something. Let it be her, even as she shuts her eyes against those words. “Look at me.” She does.

“Bull…”

“I’d kill an army over you,” he pants, the thick slap of his hips against her thighs a beat more prominent than either pace of their hearts. “I’d raze a city to the ground.”

“Fuck.” Her voice cracks, and she thrashes her head. “Don’t say that.”

“It’s true.”

Bull whispers sweet things into her ear until the bed catches their rhythm, until the slap of skin once again is the loudest thing in the room. She rushes wet around him, helpless and rocking with the force of his hips, feels every contraction of muscle against her as he tries to breathe down his own impending climax. Sweat slicks his skin, candlelight sending stripes of shining orange over his skin; it flares when he thrusts hard into her, catching her lips in a searing kiss.

“ _Come for me_ ,” He hisses, releasing her arms to grab her hips and tilt them up. “ _Let it go for me._ _”_

Kimani shouts when he drives deeper into her, feels the heat in her belly unfurl like a flower, sees the colors behind her eyelids dance through the dark, hears him follow her with a sharp shudder and a loud groan of her name into her hair.

“That sounds _nice_ ,” She murmurs breathlessly in his ear, arms slack around his neck, and he laughs. “Don’t think I don’t know what you just did.” Her limbs are slack and her mind is clear and she can hear the words he’d said in her head as though they’d replaced the hum of the Well.

“You better know,” Bull rumbles, kissing her forehead. “And you take that with you back to Skyhold, along with your new jewels.” He runs a gentle finger over the bridge of her nose.

Kimani nods, stroking his stubble. Giant man, full of scars, creaky, better than he thinks he is. “I’ll do my best.”

 

The next morning she says goodbye to Bull on the docks with a kiss and a slap on the belly when he bites her lip. _I_ _’ll see you soon._

 _Yeah._ He flicks her dragon’s tooth where it lay over her clothes. _You will._

She waits until the rest- Sera and Dorian, along with Nashan and Galani- board with their mounts before she leaves herself.

 _Don_ _’t get eaten by whatever monster they’re having you kill._

Bull hangs out on the docks until the boat leaves. Then he starts feeling like the biggest thing for miles, and turns on his heel to return to the inn.

…

 

_Chief,_

_Don_ _’t kill me for keeping this, yeah? But I tried to make sure it was authentic before I sent it your way. Heavy stuff, chief. I suggest starting with the job offers first; I know you’ll want to accept them. By the time you read this, I’ll be well on my way with Rocky, Dalish, Stitches and a couple other guys. Grim’s leg still isn’t to par, but we’re good with what we’ve got. We’ll meet you in Markham._

 _But the letter: As far as I can tell it was sent by way of the Marches on one of those freaky birds you used to get your Qunari missives from. You said those birds were bred special, but I still wanted to be sure. It took the arcanist a while, but she confirmed the parchment and the ink as well. The spymaster is pissed. She_ _’s probably going to stay pissed, but I got her word on saying nothing to the Inquisitor when she returns. I let her see it. Sorry, Chief. Kick my ass all you want when we get there._

 _We_ _’ll see you soon. I’ll look out for Kimani on the highway._

_Krem_

Bull massages his knee as he reads the letters a second time. It was good of Krem to check, but Bull knows the paper and ink and seal of the Ben-Hassrath like he knows his own heartbeat. And he’d know this handwriting anywhere; he’d _taught_ this handwriting.

“ _Vashedan_ ,” he mumbles aloud, drink the last cold dregs of Kimani’s forgotten tea.

Kimani and Sera and the others should be across the narrow strip of sea by now; sunlight wanes as evening gives in and they’d stay in Highever overnight. Be on their way first thing.

 _Don_ _’t worry, I’ve made this walk alone with much less protection,_ She’d said sweetly, kissing him like sugar. _I_ _’d send a letter but I don’t know where you’ll be by then._

He’d seen her off at the docks with this second letter in his pocket. He couldn’t conceive of leaving it behind, even for an hour.

Now, he reads it again:

_By my count it_ _’s nearly your anniversary, Hissrad. The Iron Bull. Inquisitor’s bitch, but that’s a bit bitter I guess. I do hope between her legs is a good enough reprieve. I hope you never see her in the corners of your dreams as I have. Her presence is like a dull knife; a pressing you might not notice in the throes of a dream, but she is never quiet. And she hurts._

_I do not think of you often. But I keep having nightmares about Akhaaz. Do you remember?_

_I do not know if the Ariqun would accept you in the end, but I_ _’d have you back. The last of us dwindle: Our Sten is in Rivain. I have not heard of him since. Kas is dead; she became Tallis around the time I dispatched to you in Skyhold. She ended it herself._

_Your inquisitor did something to my dreams. Akhaaz is shattered like a mirror. I can see the cracks. But it comes the same as it did when we walked those forests. I wake up unable to breathe. I fear asala-taar._

_I figure you_ _’d have some experience with both of these. The Ariqun would do well to bring you back. You would do wonders for the Beresaad, for the young soldiers that make it back. Because you know._

_And for me. Kadan before this woman, as were Kas and Our Sten. And look at us. We grow thin._

_Gattlok_

When Gatt had shown up in Skyhold unannounced, he’d laughed. He’d mocked his friend in his mind all the way up until Kimani knocked him out cold. And he’d sent Gatt on his way with a fucking smirk.

He can imagine the little elf doing the same as he penned this letter. He doesn’t believe the recruitment bit for a second, but he doesn’t believe he’s supposed to. A test, in and of itself, to see how far he’d slipped.

And mentioning his old friends, calling them _kadan_.

“You want to hurt me, jackass,” Bull mutters, rolling his dragon’s tooth between two fingers. “That’s so fucking petty.”

_Your Inquisitor did something to my dreams._

Bull holds no illusions about the reach of Kimani’s power, as quiet as she keeps it.  And if Gatt is still alive after his trespasses against, her, that was mercy in itself. He only wonders if Gatt is tipped over the edge and not the mastermind of this ploy.

It’s _not_ the Ariqun, for sure. But someone else with a need to pull him apart. Could be anyone; he’d done the entire Ben-Hassrath a swift blow of betrayal in going Tal-Vashoth. Could be someone he didn’t even remember knowing.

Bull folds the letter back and slips it into his pocket, sighing.

_Be easy. Be on your guard._

For now, he goes to gather Skinner. Markham’s a few days travel and he’d like another stroll around Ostwick before they’re to work. Give Krem and the boys a bit of time to catch up. Maybe let Skinner talk some more sense in exchange for buying her the crispy strips of fish she likes so much.

_Focus on your boys._

“Struggle is an illusion, my ass,” Bull mutters, the sacrilege sour on his tongue. “Doesn’t make it any easier to breathe.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, Kimani didn't kill Gatt in 'The Moon In Her Mouth' like she thought.  
> Yay for her moral integrity?
> 
> But, this ends another portion of the story! *fanfare* I didn't realize I was writing this thing in thirds, but it kinda feels like this next chunk will be the final third O_O  
> If you've been with me thus far 1. I'm crying at you, 2. I hope you stick with it. We're almost done!  
> ...  
> Glossary (Just qunari stuff this go round)  
> Ariqun: The leader of the priests, which is what the Ben-Hassrath fall under.  
> Akhaaz: A fortress in Seheron.  
> Asala-taar: 'Soul-sickness', what soldiers returning from Seheron often suffer from.  
> Tallis: One of the Ben-Hassrath titles that doesn't seem to have a clear definition.
> 
> Also, Our Sten is not DAO Sten.


	18. Part 3: Cleromancy (Bright Hands)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kimani returns to Skyhold and must deal with the rebel mages.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Woohoo this starts the final third of the story! This whole last part is called Cleromancy, but this chapter's title is "Bright Hands." 
> 
> "Cleromancy is a form of sortition, casting of lots, in which an outcome is determined by means that normally would be considered random, such as the rolling of dice, but are sometimes believed to reveal the will of God, or other supernatural entities."
> 
> ~ooooh~

Time never seems to slow down.

Returning to Skyhold is relief and work. Kimani buzzes nearly as soon as the portcullis rises and she steps into the flurry of her home. Her _home_.

Anyone would tell that the Inquisitor was not the talkative sort; she was modest in dress and modest in action around the fortress, often a stern-faced specter as she floated about, until a child, or a song, or a kind word warmed her into smiling. And after so long trailing their white-haired, honey eyed mage leader, Skyhold and its inhabitants were as comfortable as they’d ever be with her presence.

She returns with a bit more vigor than they’re used to. More often, they see the flash of her teeth, the husky ring of her laugh, even as she writes a furious correspondence with Divine Victoria. The Iron Lady, regardless of uniform, would never relent anything so simply, not even to one with whom she’d saved the world.

With Vivienne’s reform and revival of the Circles, the Inquisition’s rebel mages were a large pool of unfettered magic that made the the powers on either side of the Frostbacks uneasy.

Kimani must admit that she likes being the reason for the shivers run down their spines. She listens to her advisers as they give as many different opinions as they have since she’d first met them in Haven’s makeshift war room. But tensions are slack, their banter like a well-worn dialog they’re all more than willing to play out.

Fiona is who Kimani must appease, and nothing but unfettered freedom will sate the ex-Grand Enchanter.

“I can give you the space to create your own structure,” Kimani says wearily, taking the seat that had not been offered in Fiona’s corner of the library. “If she agrees, the Divine will have stipulations, she might even send an inspector, but think about if you’d rather answer to me, or to a Circle proper.”

This is not the first time they’ve spoken.

Fiona is at least as old as Kimani’s own mother, the lines of age delicate and buried in sandy brown skin. Since first meeting at Redlcliffe her hair, too, has grown out, a refined merge of storm cloud gray and faded back around her shoulders.

She’s a mature and quiet sort of beauty, but she’s not happy.

“Tell me, Inquisitor Trevelyan, how you would feel if you gained your freedom only to lose it again.”

Kimani sits back and smiles down at her politely folded hands. “I’m guessing my being Inquisitor doesn’t seem like a loss of freedom to you.”

“Not when you’re the one deciding the fate of my people,” Fiona says plainly, shrugging. “No one is going to force the Inquisitor into a Circle.”

Fair enough. Kimani flexes her marked hand against the routine ache and throb of the Anchor, hidden as it often is beneath a wrap of black cloth.

“I want to help you, Fiona.”

“Why? You didn’t join the rebellion. You aren’t beholden to the values.”Disdain tightens Fiona’s voice as she speaks, her accent heavy. “It would be all in all easier to give us over to the Divine, your friend.”

“I left my Circle because I killed a Templar. I abandoned my apprentices to the care of the man who would see me Tranquil. I ran to save my sorry ass,” Kimani offers. “I didn’t join the rebellion because I smoked too much blood lotus to do much else but walk along a path. Not every rebel mage can cope well enough to be exemplary of your values, I’m afraid.” She sits back in her seat, watching the woman steel herself against sympathy.

"It would be easier to oust you, Fiona. Spirits, it would. But I will not."

The years since the Conclave have been anything but logical or forgiving; neither woman had made it here, in the blessed peace of an overly warm library thick with the smell of old parchment and new ink, by choice. Certainly, neither woman would be here if left to their own devices.

Kimani sighs when Fiona does not waver. “At this point, Grand Enchanter, your realistic choices are either to stay behind these walls, or take your chances outside of them. I’ve stalled against Vivienne for as long as humanly possible and I need to know if you even _want_ me to further try and protect you.”

The enchanter scoffs. “And you are better? Even now that the world is saved? A mage with so few convictions  in the grand scheme of it all?”

For this, Kimani wishes the older woman knew how close she comes to being lain across the floor. Few convictions, as if the rebel mages would be anywhere with their abundance of the same if not for Kimani. As if the conscription so begrudged wasn’t the only thing standing between Fiona and a sanctioned Circle in Orlais.

“I don’t fucking know,” Kimani says on a calming exhale, tapping at the table in exasperation. “You’ve been here for a long time, now. You also know Vivienne. The rebel mages must decide for themselves what they want, but they must decide soon. I do not care what you choose, as I am so _poor_ in conviction.”

She rises from the table and bows stiffly, another relic left from her time in Ostwick Circle, and leaves Fiona to her thoughts.

 

In a week, the rebel mages are gone.

In a fortnight what’s left of them, the last of them, stand on the outside of the portcullis with defeated faces. Some have accepted the Divine’s new Circles. Some are dead. No one seems to know what happened to the former Grand Enchanter.

When a letter, sealed and gilded in the sunburst flourishes of the Divine comes across her desk, Kimani replies to Vivienne with the proposals she’d drafted two months before. In case Fiona accepted her help. The lack of reply is all Kimani needs to give the mages their tower, as well as time to decide what to do with the tempered freedom that Skyhold can offer.

And then she goes to partake in that most hallowed of stress relievers.

Well. Second most hallowed.

She takes a sturdy, practice stick and beats Cassandra’s old training dummies until hear head is clear, until she’s smiling through the sweat and Grim, whose leg has him hobbling around Skyhold more lonely than upset, sits watching. He nods, grunting his approval.

“Don’t pack my head, Grim,” Kimani chastises with a laugh as she falls to the ground and the quiet man claps. “I’m still shit. I’m just shit with a mean streak.” She lay out on the ground, heedless of gravel and dust. Her body buzzes so much that she wants to buzz with it. She nearly feels _normal_ ; no Anchor, no Well, no _mulki_.

“You’re not complete shit.”

Kimani’s eyes shoot open, turning her head to where Grim sits. She’s heard his voice maybe once, and certainly not directed at her.

Grim shrugs. “Mediocre. Could be better. Spar with chief, not Krem.”

She laughs. “I don’t spar with Bull for a reason.”

Grim rolls his eyes. “Bad reason. Your form’s alright. Funny feet.” He takes his crutch and hoists himself up, hobbling away. “But you didn’t hear it from me.”

“Of course not. You ever want dinner company, you let me know.” Kimani offers on impulse, smiling still when he shakes his head. “Open offer.”

“Worship,” Grim grunts over his shoulder, and Kimani scoffs incredulously, watching him go.

“He called me mediocre,” She says to the dummies. “That’s a compliment.”

She smiles to herself form a moment. Then she dusts herself off, and gets back to it.

…

 

_Kadan,_

_It_ _’s good over here. We’ve gotten a little popular in such a short time, and the boys are hot. We’ll be here a bit longer. No one’s been eaten by anything, no injuries of note, but it really is pretty the further into the Free Marches you get._

_I_ _’ve also gotten Krem laid twice, and it only makes him want to finally lock Harding down. I am so proud of myself._

_Anyway. All the logistical shit is in the official missive. I just wanted to talk to you. I heard about Fiona and the rebel mages, and I_ _’m sorry. You did well by them and you would have gone to war for them, despite everyone telling you not to. Including me. But you would have, and I can’t call you kadan if I don’t accept that. And be a little proud of you for it you ridiculous, brave woman._

_If any of those mages made it back to you, focus on them. Not on Vivienne. Or the Chantry. Fuck the Chantry._

_My hair is doing something weird, and you_ _’re not here to fix it. I ran out of the nice-smelling stuff you left for me; I plan on going back to that damned market and buying some. We’ve got a job near Ostwick coming up, surprisingly enough._

 _I hope your dreams are easy, that you don_ _’t need to use the note pad. I know your mom supposedly fixed it but if you see that skinny elf shit, you kick his ass. Keep Dorian and Galani close. Not too close. They’re still pretending they don’t want to fuck each other, I bet._

 _Shit. I hope you_ ' _ve figured that out by now, because I don’t have time to re-write this letter._

 _Write me back. And don_ _’t open that parcel till it’s time. This letter should get to you a day or so beforehand. Still not old enough for that hair, but I guess everything’s a process._

 _-Big_ _’in. Or however the fuck you spell it. I miss you, Fluff._

Kimani reads the letter in the library as Dorian naps beside her, grinning like a young idiot at Bull’s neat hand. She feels each day of separation since leaving Ostwick, and it’s such a strange thing to have to imagine his teeth bruising some stretch of her skin instead of having them, having him.

 Summer proves long, and autumn just barely touches the Frostbacks.

“Ah, the horned husband must send love and explicit things in word form for you to blush like that,” Nashan says quietly as she approaches, waving.

Kimani scoffs. “Is that what you’re calling him, now? Not giant asshole, or _enkidu_ qunari scum?”

“Nah. My mother seemed to like him well enough, that’s incentive for me to give him a better name. I could call him Teacup. That’s what she calls him.”

“Don’t call him Teacup,” Kimani laughs, patting the space beside her. She tugs one of Nashan’s locs fondly.

The girl had found herself a job at Herald’s Rest, got in good with the staff and now the food coming out of the kitchen tasted a bit more like home. She always smells like food, now. Garlic and lemon oil and smoked meat. When Kimani does see her, she’s practicing arcane things with Dorian in the small arena set aside for the mages, back near the tower Fiona and her people had kept.

“Gala’s looking for you,” she says, stretching a tight curl of Kimani’s hair in kind. “It didn’t sound urgent. He’s been with those mages. The ones that came back.”

If Nashan had somewhat surprised her in returning, then Galani had nearly knocked her into the sea. He hadn’t even given much explanation, besides citing interest in the rebel mages. No word of how he could not go home, as Asha had said, and she wouldn’t push him to speak. Kimani had nearly expected him to leave with Fiona, if only to put up a fight to the Chantry in delayed revenge.

When the survivors returned to Skyhold, he’d been eager to speak with them, to spend time with them. Many times since their return, Kimani had walked into Herald’s Rest and seen him at a table with one or three of the mages, laughing over stew.

In passing he’d said, _I suppose there **are** places in this fortress for anomalies_ , and left her speechless in the courtyard.

“I’ll find him after I leave here. Tomorrow I’m going down into the Hinterlands, if you want to come along.”

Nashan perks up. “Yeah. What for?”

“My birthday,” Kimani says simply, shrugging. “My birthday is tomorrow.”

Aside from the origins of her hair, her birthday is her best kept secret. Leliana knows. Bull knows. Cassandra knows. Dorian has a good guess; he’d left a conspicuous parcel near her door last week and turned red as a beet when she told him exactly how many days off he was. The small package from Bull sits heavy in her lap. She will take both gifts along for her mini excursion.

“You bitch.” Nashan shakes her head, bewildered. “You don’t even give me time to prepare? How old will you be, at least?”

“Thirty-two.” For her last year, she’d not told anyone until after the fact. Leliana had left her a bottle of wine, and Cassandra a new book. Bull still hadn’t known, but he’d given her _something_ once he found out. That memory still makes her warm in all the right places. And the year before that? Well. That had been just after Adamant. No celebrations there.

“I take it you don’t like parties.”

“I actually do. Just after we killed Corypheus, there was such a nice party. Drinking and food and music.”

It _had_ been a nice party. Nashan doesn’t look convinced.

Dorian snorts next to her, slumping further. He, too, had spent time with the remaining rebel mages, as well as reading missives from Tevinter. Soon. He’d have to go home very soon.

She slides out from beneath him,letting him settle against Nashan. “When he’s up, tell him we’re going into the lowlands and he has no choice but to come, alright? You’re his little student. He won’t yell at you.”

If Galani wants to talk she’d get it out of the way now; tomorrow she plans on leaving with the sun, if not earlier. She’s excited. Oh, she just wants to burn something and let the sun kiss her bronze.

Kimani is halfway to the mages’ tower when she stops. Nothing hits her, exactly, not like it has in the past, like a damned druffalo ramming into her back. It’s a half-tremor she nearly mistakes for a shiver at the gust of cool wind. An infant foreboding.

Odd.

“ _Damiq_ , did Nana send you?” Galani is waving as he comes from the towers, hair loosely braided and damp from a recent washing. “It wasn’t urgent, but you might be interested in some of the conversations I’ve had with these mages. They’re so _refreshing_ , cousin, if a bit misguided, I… _sa kanu_? What’s on your mind?”

Kimani realizes she’s frowning at him, and softens her face. “Nothing. It’s nothing. A chill. You look so happy,” She realizes, taken aback. As if they were still in Ostwick, his mother under her arm. “What have you found?”

Galani looks browned from the sun, nearly the same steady dark as Nashan, golden highlights at his temples. With a thin, sleeveless tunic the marks of his magic are blatant, a dance of scars and tattoos from shoulder to knuckles. All of the scars look old. Kimani does not think he uses blood magic in Skyhold, realizes she’s only ever seen him use it the one time. Felt him, rather.

To say hello.

Her cousin flashes his white teeth. “Something resembling common ground, this far south. Would that I was here for their little war.”

Kimani lifts a brow.“I would not call it little, but…where _were_ you, when the sky split?”

“Antiva.” He says the name with lilt similar to Josephine’s, clipped with Rivaini tones. “My lover at the time wanted to travel south, to see. And I agreed to follow her. Such a lovely lady. Anyway, your rebel mages.”

“Not mine.” Kimani shakes her head vigorously. “Protected by me, but free to leave.”

Galani’s smile goes sharp. “Indeed. Well, they have such ideas for the piece of sanctuary you’ve given them. It…gods, it reminds me of home. It is emotional, in here,” He presses a hand to his chest. “I still would not mention my preferred magic to them, but they have eyes. They see the badges of my practice. But they are so open, these unfortunate few.”

For a moment, Kimani thinks she sees a shine in Galani’s eyes and fights the urge to take his hand. He’d be one to pull away and she could not break this moment, as open as the breach had once been.

“As the Divine’s seen fit to leave them be, hopefully they will become more fortunate soon,” she says.

“I do not know what to think of your mage Divine.”

“I’d think that you would hate her on principle.”

“I hate many things.” Galani comes close, and Kimani has to look up to him. Tall, sinewy thing. He lay his hand hesitantly on her shoulder; the wind blows a braid against her blouse. “I hate the Seekers that burned the _insabat_ and killed my apprentices, my friends, our blood. I hate the Templars who had taken our help for years, had escorted _children_ home for visits, but turned to run their swords through us the moment that creature signed our death papers. I hate that they chanted while they killed us.” His hand remains slack against her shoulder, petting the fabric there, but Kimani wishes he’d squeeze. Dig his nails in. Rage in the quiet grip of a hand that could not save. Let her know.

 “And I hated your Divine. I wanted to bash her skull in before I ever saw her. Her and all of those fucking bishops. But then I saw her. She could so easily be… why do you have faith in her?”

“I don’t know, but I do,” Kimani admits, helpless against his grief. “She will be for mages in the way that she knows how. She would _never_ have allowed what happened at Dairsmuid, Galani.”

Galani holds her gaze, steeling himself against the tears he knuckles away so that no more fall; that hand begins wrapping his braid around his fist and unwrapping, a nervous tick. He doesn’t believe her, and it sends a shiver down her spine.

“ _Summu nura, tal ditallu a magiri ad mitu._ _We are deprived of light and become dust, but we submit only in death._ Those were the last things Rivella said to me.” He wipes his face a final time, clears his throat, and Kimani can see the open door of his soul closing back again, his demeanor reborn. “I suppose we’ll see just how much light she needs to make herself shine. She already claims the sun.”

“You said there were conversations that I should hear,” Kimani says softly. Bull’s words echo back at her. _If any of those mages made it back, focus on them._

It’s a warm, calm day and she wants them to keep enjoying it. She doesn’t want to be the reason that Galani is upset.

He nods, relieved, and extends a gentleman’s arm that she takes. “Yes. They still have such hope. If only the world will allow them the space to cultivate it again.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love Vivienne. Like I love her to death. But we're dealing with a survivor of Dairsmuid and an ex-apostate who is pretty politically confused, no matter how much she agrees with "fuck the chantry."
> 
> And the title comes directly from what the Skyhold mages would call themselves, depending on the game's ending ("The Bright Hand").
> 
> Glossary (Rivaini headcanon stuff):  
> Enkidu- a swear, generally all encompassing.  
> Damiq- Means "good."  
> Insabat- What the Rivaini called their Circle. It really does just mean "circle."


	19. Birthday

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kimani turns 32 and takes a trip into the Hinterlands to celebrate how she likes. A short bit of fluff.

There are good ghosts on the West Road; if Kimani were to lay down in the fields and dream, she’s sure she’d find good ghosts woven into its tapestry. Gentle things.

Last she’d spent time here she had to reconcile killing apostates, which ended up taking less time when the apostates began trying to kill _her_.

Now, a spooked nug darts around her legs and tumbles over the uneven ground; she chokes on the last drip of druffalo jerky in her mouth as it falls.

“The little nug…and its stupid legs!” She cackles, trying and failing to explain to a bewildered Nashan. “It’s so fat it just flips!” Her hands cover her face as Nashan only looks progressively more confused.

Dorian chuckles, and Kimani feels his hand on her back before he speaks. “It doesn’t make sense to any of us, Nashan, trust me.” She hears him say. “Just wait. Eventually, some moose or cow, or other large, horned animal will tip in her view, and you won’t get her to stop.”

The nug grunts from its place in a thatch of elfroot, feet struggling in the air until it gains enough momentum to roll over and scuttle away.

Weak, her hands clutching her knees, Kimani watches it go.

“That was a good omen,” She gasps. “Or a bad one. I never really understood how to tell.”

“That wasn’t an omen,” Nashan says, dreads trembling as she shakes her head. “That was a punk rat with bad footing. We’re out here to hunt bear, yeah?”

“We’re out here because Kimani likes the Hinterlands,” Dorian corrects, stretching his arms over his head. “You’re here because you’ve been adopted, I’m here because I’ll be leaving in a fortnight, which we won’t be talking about presently. Hunting bears is simply what makes the Inquisitor sound fierce.”

Kimani makes a strangled noise, clutching her hair in mock offense. “Take out all the fun of it, why don’t you? I _would_ like to kill something. Maybe a wolf would be easier.”

 

Witchwood, since the mage-templar war, is eerily quiet. Slowly, townships along the West Road were returning. Slowly. Reports indicated the wood still held some bandits, but nothing near as threatening as the apostates and sellswords they employed when Kimani first ventured through these trees.

Aside from the road, the land is a tumble of levels and boulder, hills and sharp rises in grassy, thriving ground. Mounts are a detriment and thick, Ferelden boots are a necessity. Tripping animals are a treat.

Kimani is so happy to be here, closes her eyes as she steps into a swatch of hot sun. The sharp _zing_ of insects shooting through the air sends tingles down her spine, and she slaps at her arms when they dare to land. 

“Gonna show you both the big cave,” She says finally, a cloud passing over the sun to break the light.

Dorian and Nashan nod in startling sync; He has taken on the role of mentor like an old cloak, and with his coming departure he never seems to take it off. Nashan soaks it up eagerly, her big eyes bright. Good kid. Kimani loves her, and it was a surprise twist of her heart when she realized just how much.

They pick through the uncaring terrain, tripping and cursing and laughing, filling the forest with the kind of joy it surely remembers how to hold; the insects grow furious, criss-crossing the sky in droves, revved by their visitors’ casual happiness.

Farther into the wood, away from the road, the old camps of apostates are overgrown, eaten up by moss and forest floor. Slowly; a Crystal Grace plant curls around an abandoned pot-belly kettle.

 

This is _exactly_ it. Kimani grins at her companions over her shoulder; Dorian groans.

“You’re not.”

“She’s not what?” Nashan eats another piece of jerky, looking between them and the flowers.

“You know better,” Kimani huffs, stepping over rocks to snip off three violet blossoms. “And you’d better keep them on till I fucking say. It’s my birthday.”

She takes the first blossom and tucks it behind Nashan’s ear, kissing her compliant cousin on her distended cheek. Then, she turns to Dorian.

“Bend, ser.”

Dorian sighs. “That flower is hideous.” But, he bends for her to braid it into the hairs along his temple, accepting her kiss with a showy scowl.

“Very nice.” Kimani beams. “Someone will surely enjoy it when we return.”

The edges of Dorian’s mouth quirk, fighting against both shock and a smile. “I have no idea what you mean.”

“Onward, my darlings!” Kimani declares instead, marching ahead as she twists her blossom into her own hair. “Cassandra, Varric, Solas, and I kept this cave when we spent weeks in the wood. And then…Haven was destroyed and it was forgotten. But! There should be little more than plants and small creatures to contend with now.”

When she’d left the cave, it’d been bare. Once the apostate stronghold, after they defeated the leader she claimed it. Kimani had put up weak barriers to ward all but the most determined away, but with the expanse of caves in Witchwood, she didn’t think it too greedy to stake claim to one.

Making it back after so long is a success. First the Herald of Andraste, agent of the Inquisition. And now, Inquisitor Trevelyan, _still alive_. Another year older.

She doesn’t care if the cave’s been overrun with every plant the wood has to offer, she’d spend her birthday clearing it out just to do it. There were always bears. Bears could wait.

And yet, it seems, they couldn’t.

“Shit, down!” Kimani hisses, dropping to the rocky ground with a grunt. “Big bear, _big_ bear.”

“I fucking see it,” Nashan growls, huddled low behind a rock. “Did you…want one that big?”

Dorian stands still, behind a tree, his only sign of stress the quirk in his brow. “Please, if you continue I’ll have to make the jokes, as Varric is not here to.”

The bear is massive, shaggy, grass matted in its long fur, face like a storybook creature. It pads around the mouth of the cave aimlessly, dropping sporadically to scratch at its massive shoulders.

It sneezes. Kimani snorts. “We gotta kill it.”

Nashan curses. “ _What_ -”

“Shh. It’s by itself, we won’t have to worry about fighting two of them. And it’s in my cave.” Kimani looks at both of them, shrugging. “Look at all of that meat! We’d be doing a good thing. That farmstead we passed on the way here? They’d definitely use the meat. _I_ just want the head.” She looks at Dorian for support but the mage sputters, shrugging helplessly. Useless. “Besides, there’s at least two scouts trailing us at the moment. If we somehow need help, we have it.”

She pleads her case, but they all know that they’re going to fight the bear. Kimani drums her fingers against the ground as excitement takes her. _Oh, yes._

“Perhaps not the best idea to be three mages against a bear. I’m assuming you don’t want it burned to a crisp.” Dorian peeks around his tree to see the bear, who doesn’t seem to have smelled them yet.

She nods. “Last time I torched a bear it went really, really poorly. Shocking it seems to only make it angry. Ice is good. Other spells are good. I brought a sword.”

“…Kimani, your swordsmanship-”

“ _Grim_ said I was mediocre,” Kimani says proudly, patting her scabbard. “So fuck you, Pavus, that’s good enough for a damned bear.”

“ _Alright_.” Nashan throws rocks at them, flinching when the bear whines. “Damn the pair of you, let’s just kill the thing and be done with it.”

Kimani grins, clapping her hands quietly. “This is why you’re my favorite cousin.”

“Comforting.”

The plan is this; Kimani will meet the bear head-on while Nashan and Dorian flank it, their styles the most in sync since training together. If anything, the scout would shoot the final blow, but the bear would give Kimani the rush she wants regardless.

Some animals she’s less giddy to kill. But bears? In the Hinterlands, bears were plentiful, mean bastards, rivaled only by the demon wolves she’d had to clear out for Master Dennett’s recruitment.

And the thrice-fucked, maker-forsaken _dragons_.

After a deep breath and a prayer, Kimani rises. Immediately, the bear locks onto her, more curious that anything at first. Then it huffs a warning growl that grows louder when Kimani advances. The cave at its back frames it in menacing dark, truly a wild thing emerged from its lair. Except that it’s _her_ lair and damn it, she’d like it back.

She can feel Nashan and Dorian move into position, sees that the bear notices. But she’s the one in clear view.

 

When the bear lunges, Kimani falls into the dance.

 

…

 

“I am absolved of birthdays for your next five birthdays,” Nashan declares as she emerges from the trees, still damp from the river. “I bathed three times and I still smell like dead bear.”

“Consider it a badge of honor,” Kimani says around a full mouth of stew. Thin, brown, the potatoes as dark as the meat and flavored the same, so she can’t tell just what’s in her mouth until she bites down. Good post-fight fare. Good shit. “Anyway, the smell will be gone by the time we reach Skyhold tomorrow. None of your paramours will have to endure the stench of battle.” She blows a kiss as her cousin hides her grin.

“Paramours my ass.”

Kimani rolls her shoulder and winces a little; maybe the bear had been faster than she thought. _Maybe_ it clipped her as she tried to spin out of its way. And maybe she might have possibly bruised her shoulder a bit. Nothing major, nothing a bit of a healer’s touch couldn’t alleviate. Good pain.

Nashan and Dorian are unscathed, only tired and smelly and grumpily good-natured from the rush. The thrill. Kimani knows; both of them ride the same wave of energy she does, if only it could be teased out from their more formidable shells. And, they worked ridiculously well together, attacking the bear from its sides in near-perfect union. Something the younger would puff about, surely, to Galani when they returned.

But Kimani has her bear skull. She can almost see it, stripped clean and boiled smooth, hanging in her quarters. The dragon mantle in the throne room is magnificent, but she hates dragons.

Bears are _quality_.

Dorian sits down beside her with a bowl stew. He nods to the heavy book by her side. His gift to her. “So, do you like it?”

“I love it.” She pats the cover fondly, dragging her fingers over the deep grooves of the title. _Dreams of Afsaana_. Apparently an account of one Rivaini _somniari_ during the Storm Age, written by the woman herself, as well as her wife. “And you won’t tell me just how you found it? In Trade tongue, no less?”

“Well naturally, it is a copy,” Dorian says, spooning stew into his mouth. “But it’s an accurate translation, from a trusted distributor in Tevinter.”

“You checked.” Kimani puts a hand to her heart. “So you’ve read this _twice_.”

“I wouldn’t give you a shit translation for your birthday, what do you think of me? Happy Birthday, my dear. And when you’re done I must hear your thoughts.” Dorian smirks into his bowl when Kimani nudges him, her ‘thank you,’ a small and delicate thing awash in affection.

“I’m reading it next,” Nashan calls from where she procures her dinner. She laughs at something the soldier manning the station says before coming to join them at the fire. “That pretty soldier says you’re shorter than she expected. And she gave you extra meat.”

“I’m a head taller than her,” Kimani laughs, keeping her voice low. She looks into her bowl and tries to discern which lumps are extra meat and with are potato, failing. “But perhaps I’m meant to be a giant. Unfortunately, I only bed them.”

Both Nashan and Dorian choke on their stew.

 

She opens Bull’s present once they’ve all turned in for the night. The package is small but weighty, and unlike Dorian’s very distinct book-shaped package, Kimani could not guess what he’d gotten her.

The gold glints green in the Anchor’s light, and Kimani gasps. She slips the thin note from beneath the jewelry, and reads.

 _Your nose thing comes in different styles, apparently. But then I thought, well you sometimes wear earrings. Maybe you_ _’d wear them more if you had more. So I got you two of each in a style I’d seen your aunt Tavi wearing at the market. The nose things I picked with my own eye. But I hope you like them._ _Happy birthday. You_ _’ve got some other gifts coming when I get home._

_-Bull_

Kimani grins until her cheeks hurt, imagining how he must have dealt with so many sellers, how he must have haggled with them. How he’d wrapped each thing in its own cloth before wrapping them together in parchment, a little white strip of lace tied in a bow.

“Damn it,” Kimani says, knuckling away a tear as she lay down. “Damn him.”

 

The next day she travels the short road back to Skyhold with gold gleaming in her ears, her friends at her side, and a well-sized bear’s head for her mantle. She's certain her escapade has not deterred Josephine's plans for a birthday celebration but with her prize acquired, she's more than ready for a fancy affair. Maybe she'll even wear a dress. Certainly, the wine will be magnificent. 

And she thinks perhaps, that it will be a better year than before.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The other gifts include dick, dick ft. rope, and some fancy wine.
> 
> Naturally.


	20. Information From Ghosts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gatt's letter isn't the end of whatever the Ben-Hassrath are playing at with Iron Bull. Bull didn't pull his manipulation skills out of his ass, after all.

Work is good. Work clears like brushfire.

Bull has never been in the Marches for any extended amount of time but with this months-long run of the city states, he decides it’s about as far south as he’d like to be when the time came to quit Skyhold. The people are nice, hearty people. The nobles are snobs but they’re Marcher snobs and with it brings a bunch of silk-covered assholes with fists to write home about.

On their first job, the noble who hires them insists on coming along to fight what seemed to be a group of trolls strayed too far from their mountain. Bull tells the wife that if ol’ Mister Noble didn’t come back in one piece, she could roast him on a spit.

The man comes back with a broken arm, and so his wife hits Bull one good time in the stomach, so hard that it nearly hurts. Fair enough.

 Bull likes Markham for sure, if all of their women punched like backstreet brawlers and their men laughed about broken bones. He wanted to offer their kid a job, but he was set to inherit more than he’d make with the Chargers, for damn sure.

And the Chargers make _money_.

Bull keeps Gatt’s letter buttoned in his back pocket and keeps his, Skinner’s and Krem’s eyes sharp. The first few weeks are quiet in that regard. He even skims by without nightmares waking him up to reach for a weapon. Or her.

So another job comes up and they take it. They clear a nasty group of bandits from a new plot of land owned by a woman who definitely killed her husband. Tries to bed Bull, then tries to bed Krem, and surely ends up bedding _someone_. She’s pretty with nice tits and smart as a whip, the kind of mouth that cuts with words sharper than the manicured tips of her nails. Bull wouldn’t have even guessed she was a murderer if that had never been part of his job.

Honestly, it’s none of his business. He just finds it amusing to read the way she lays the map of herself out like an expensive rug.

The three kids, who appear just as Bull and his men are leaving the property, are a surprise he commends her on keeping.

Another job in Hercinia where they clear some wolf infestation for the murder wife’s sister, and then The Chargers take a break for inventory: injuries, money, prospects, time-lines. Alcohol. Krem gets cracked in the nose by a mean bastard in the forest between here and there. Bull gets stabbed in the leg by the same mean bastard when he ducks the blow that would have killed him. He doesn't duck the second. Thankfully, he stabs Bull in the good leg; the bad one aches from the exercise already, and he rubs it down at night.

He tends to rub himself down at night, thinking of amber eyes and brown skin, the press of her soft lips on his as she molds to him, her teeth sharp on his arm to muffle her cries as she bounces recklessly in his lap, until he comes with a heavy sigh through his nose, his own teeth sunk into his free hand if he has one. In those falling-down moments after, he almost feels bad for keeping Gatt’s letter from her.

But what the fuck could she really do?  Get really mad and burn the grass beneath her feet. Threaten the entirety of Par Vollen, because _that_ was feasible. And, since discovering that Kimani had actually gone after Gatt, Bull honestly things she might go and hurt him.

So no, Bull just keeps that information in his pocket. And his chest. And his stomach. And his head.

Until it stands like an unwelcome ghost in his face.

Bull is at a Hercinian market when he sees the telltale signs of his old order.  The Ben-Hassrath agent moves like a familiar breeze, smooth until he isn’t, his movements jerky every few breaths as if he’s still trying to get used to his new skin. Bull is dead certain that the kid still has the scent of _qamek_ clinging to him. _Qamek_ and metal and leather he probably misses oiling every once in a while because he’s greener than spring grass.

But he’d heard that happens with _viddathari_. Because this world is still theirs, the south is something they already know and thus its easier for new agents to come down and fit. No chance for a kid straight from Par Vollen to come this far south and blend the way this agent blends, his quirks only obvious to Bull.

The first one is a courtesy, he thinks. The agent doesn’t even know Bull is Bull, but his superiors dangle him like meat anyway. See if Bull's mouth waters. No one would know but him, and that’s how a take-down is done from the inside so that by the time the important people come to collect, the target is long past done. Bull has done this many times. 

He watches as the agent disappears from view, unrecognizable but to those who already know just how the Ben-Hassrath move. Bull gets what he’d come to market for, and goes right on back to where the Chargers lodge.

So, the first one is a courtesy. The second one seems more like a warning which honestly, Bull is far more interested in.

…

“Listen Chief. Chief, I swear to all the gods, Chief. Listen…” Krem slurs, his arm propped on Bull’s shoulder as he leans heavily, breath like sweet bile and cheeks like apples. He’s working through an impressive amount of alcohol, he’s already been sick once, and they’ve got him good on water and bread from the waitress he’d had in his lap when his drinks were still few. She seems genuinely concerned now and it makes sense with the way Krem had been talking so sweetly into her ear. Too bad Krem is talking about marrying Scout Harding, now.

“I love her, Chief. I swear it. I’m gonna write her a letter. Like how you write Kimani tons of letters and only send one, except I’m gonna send them _all_ to her, Chief.” He nods sharply, nearly losing his balance.

“Alright, Krem,” Bull chuckles, clapping his lieutenant on the shoulder.

The rest of his team is scattered around the tavern, winding down as the night grows late; Dalish and Skinner have been entangled since the Chargers met Bull in Markham, and tonight is no different. Only now, they unravel enough to get their legs beneath them so they can disappear into their room. When someone whistles after them, both small hands fly into the air, middle fingers pointing to the ceiling. Stitches is singing with the bard and Rocky dances to the shitty duet, blissed the entire fuck out.

“I’m serious...how...why don’t you send em all to her, chief? You’re always writing, fuck, she’d love em,” Krem insists, “She’s like…Kimani’s like quality, you know. Harding is quality, too. Just…I’m gonna write her a fucking novel, then when we get back I’m gonna make it proper.” Krem’s eyes are closed now, the top of his head pressed against Bull’s cheek. “Now I’m tired. The floor won’t stop moving.”

That’s all Bull needs to hear; there’s a traveler who has been eyeing him all night, and she looks about ready for Attempt #2 at charming him right up into her room.

He stands, steadying Krem. “Up we go, then, Krembrulee. Come on, let’s go.”

But once he deposits Krem into his bed and goes to his own hem as usual, can’t sleep. Blame it on whatever, blame it on being used to her in his bed, blame it on his irritatingly racing mind. He checks on his boys still down in the tavern before deciding to go on a stroll.

Summer nights are easy, cool where it was once humid and gentle where the sun was harsh during the day. Summer nights are reprieve, a beckoning calm, the closest thing to a friend that a lone night wanderer might know.

 _No friend of mine_ , Bull thinks as he walks past the prettiest, reddest woman he’s ever seen, her armor worn and her face hard, tresses pulled back in a sensible braid.

It’s a beacon. _She’s_ a beacon. The Ben Hassrath are fucking signaling him like _imekaari_ playing at spies, and _laughing_ about it.

He doesn’t know if insulted is the right word for how he feels.

“I’ve already walked into the trap, haven’t I?” Bull asks, turning to where the woman sits atop stacked, abandoned crates. The night is quiet and dark around them, the starlit sky reflected in the black mirror of the nameless lake. Calm and still; most shops are closed but townspeople drift. Guards walk, and low flying birds split the mirror beneath them so the night sky dances in the broken reflection. Everywhere else, trees swell like dark storm clouds, swaying with the wind. Bull thinks it a nice night. His boys would agree. But they were safe inside where he’d left them.

“There is no trap, tal-vashoth,” The woman says coolly, pale green eyes aglitter as she looks up at him. She’s new too and young, he realizes. The pallor of conditioning still clings to her skin but those eyes are sharp. She might be the kind that likes a bit of a ghost on her back. She doesn’t smile at him. “Only a message.”

Why the fuck are they sending him kids?

Because he won’t hurt them unless he has to.

“Afraid I didn’t get the message last time?” Bull knows she’s not alone. There’s probably two more, including the one he saw earlier. One of them fast enough to put up a fight, and one with poison. Unless she was the one with the poison.

The woman is a blank slate, staring tonelessly back at him. This is the base-level of their training; he hasn’t yet decided if she’s a good agent or a good render. Hasn’t gotten her aura, as Kimani would say.

“Funny you’ve been following me all day for a message. Agents better than you were never so dramatic.” Not even a blink. Bull shrugs. “Well, go ahead and deliver it, _salit_.”

Something about that makes her smooth a loose hair behind her ear. She’s got a broken nail on her left pointer; the crack nearly hits her cuticle, outlined in a blush of red.

Bull gestures at the wound. “You need a bandage before that gets infected,” he says, interrupting her with a shrug. She scowls at him before remembering herself. “What? You do. It’d be shitty to have to cut your finger off when you don’t need to. Trust me.” He wiggles his cut hand, noting how now she tenses when he moves.

The Iron Bull doesn’t hurt kids. Even kinda-grown kids. But he’d crack this one a few times to get her on the ground if he had to. That old, boundless urge bubbles up in his throat and he can’t swallow it down far enough to get rid of the taste.

The agent regains herself. “The message is this; The offer give to you is legitimate. Your old partner might be ailing in other ways but he is still a formidable soldier. See, how he’s done so well? You stand here and humor me as if we don’t know where your company lodges for the night, as if we two are equals in a conversation,” She pauses here for gauche effect, cocking her head so her gaze turns dangerous.

Bull tries not to laugh. “Are you threatening me? Is…that what that one woman was? A lookout? You’re killing me, kid. _The offer is legitimate._ Is that all? Can we wrap this up? _Vashedan viddathari_ ,” he swears, scoffing.

“Worried about your team,” The agent says knowingly nodding.

Bull rolls his eye. “Worried about finishing my damn walk before sunrise, _imekari_. I don’t know what the Ben-Hassrath want with me, but neither do you. Which makes you useless to me. I wouldn’t believe I was being re-recruited if the Ariqun himself came and told me.”

Maybe he’s a little irritated; the agent regards him for a moment longer, just long enough to try and instill doubt in him, and then shrugs, hopping off of her seat and straightening her cloak. Her weapons are concealed, whereas Bull’s daggers glint in the moonlight, a line of a poem.

“Until next time, tal-vashoth,” she says simply, turning her back on him to walk along the lonely path.

Bile sours the back of Bull’s throat as he imagines just bashing her head against the stones. But that’s what savages do.

Bull doesn’t finish his stroll; he goes back to the inn and drinks himself sleepy. In the morning, everyone’s headaches sing together as they try to eat breakfast. Everyone is accounted for. Bull knew that. He had no doubts. None at all.

But then, maybe three days later, he wakes up with his old squad’s names on his lips.

Kas. Our Sten. Gatt.

Fuck.

Gatt’s words echo in his head. _Kas is dead. She ended it herself._

But Bull remembers her, tall and wiry with gold-capped horns that should have been too big for her delicate head, long white hair that fell to her hips in three thin braids, the rest curled into buns around those horns. She was speed and lean muscle and a deep, husky voice that had Seheron natives-the ones sympathetic to Qunari, at least- in love with her. She never laughed at anything Bull said, but she’d stuck with him when the choice was given, when orders moved him from one swamp to the next with his choice of team.

Skinner. Skinner reminds him of Kas.

 Bull fumbles for a second in the dark, realizes his cut hand is clenched around the dagger beneath his pillow. He curses as he releases it, trying to remember his dream and failing. He is covered in sweat, his eye threatening tears of all things. Bull rubs at his ruined socket and groans.

He’s dreaming about Seheron. And if he knows anything, it’s that the dreams are what destroyed nearly everyone who made it back to Par Vollen from that Island. But he’s been having them for a year in spurts. Kept it to himself, thought he could handle it. Shit, if Kimani could handle whatever the fuck wouldn’t leave her alone, he could handle some nightmares, too.

He’d thought he’d be safe on jobs, moving around. And maybe he had been, which is why he’d been met with three of the Ben-Hassrath in a matter of months.

Okay, so they were trying to break him. But what for? Tal-Vashoth were dead, for all intents and purposes. Violent Tal Vashoth (and, really, he’d let a dreadnought _explode_ ) were dashed from the books. The fact that he was a thought in anyone’s mind- anyone beyond Gatt, poor fuck- threw him for a loop he didn’t fucking like.

This just wasn’t procedure.

_Our Sten is in Rivain. I have not heard of him since._

Our Sten is probably living it up, probably a little soft around the middle from being a good diplimat. If anyone could rival Bull in the charm department it was Our Sten. Handsome bastard with a pout that made you want to kiss it, no matter what he was saying. A good sexual partner, good hands, good everything.

Sex in Seheron had been the pinnacle of Qun ideology. But Bull thinks he could have done what he’s doing with Kimani with Our Sten, if so many variables had changed his world as they had changed Bull’s.

“Last I’d seen of him he’d just broken his horn,” Bull mutters to no one, digging into the tight tendons of his neck. That unreachable, ghost crick is back in full force. “Had me sand it smooth for his bone cap. Funny, capping bone with bone.”

And now Our Sten is in Rivain. Bull hears that Kont-Aar is nice, that it’s a very easy experience with the Rivaini even though the qunari were on borrowed land and of course, wanted the nation for themselves. The Rivaini converted easier than most but when they didn’t, they fought the Qunari back into comfortable spaces and only let them move on command.

If that isn’t defeat, Bull doesn’t know what is.

_I keep having nightmares about Akhaaz. I wake up unable to breathe. I fear asala-taar. Do you remember?_

Does he remember. He remembers waking up in some unnamed Seheron underbrush and only wanting to toss himself at merciless fog warrior feet. He remembers quiet before everything he’d tried to build of himself in Seheron dissolved into the mist.

The ship that took him back to Par Vollen was blue.

Bull definitely remembers the re-educators telling him he’d suffered from _asala-taar_ \- the soul sickness -  as they poured burning liquids down his throat. He’d hallucinated for two days, felt his mind clench and twist with the things they tried to pound into his psyche for eight. But he can’t remember anything they said. Just the feeling of his head contracting like a pulled muscle.

By the time he turned himself in, he was alone in the jungle. Kas was the most impressive, lasted four years. Our Sten left after three, Gatt left after three. They’d all come during Bull’s last hurrah, those years where it just…went to shit. But then they all came at the same damn time, like an anchor.

And only one of them was dead after so long. That’s achievement.

Bull sighs. He can’t deny the letter’s weight on him since Ostwick. He cannot deny how easy it had been to fall into character with the red-headed agent.

“But I’m here, now. I made that choice. I did. I keep making that choice," he says to no one. If only he knew why they wanted to torture him like this. Give Bull a reason, and he could protect himself better.

But his ex-superiors know this. They know how he ticks. And so here he is, still damp with night sweat, grabbing at a muscle spasm in his neck that he can never reach, his stomach in knots as he plays the letter over in his head.

_Inquisitor’s bitch._

_I do hope between her legs is a good enough reprieve._

_Your Inquisitor did something to my dreams._

“Mad at Kimani…hurt me.” Bull mumbles. “Mad at Kimani, hurt me. Because you don’t know how else to hurt her. The magic shit backfired, and I never figured out anything else.” Of course, now he knows. Kill Asha, Kill Nashan. Shit, kill Galani.

Kill him. They didn’t even have to _kill_ him. Just break him down.

Somehow, it feels better to think of himself as a pawn. A thing to be used for a greater goal. Put some emphasis on the article of his self-given name again.

“Damn it,” Bull hisses, slamming his hands against the bed. “That’s what they’re wanting me to think. Fuck this.”

Under his pillow is a dagger, yes, but under the dagger is a letter. It came the morning after he’d seen the agents, along with vials of pungent hair oil for his use.

_Big’un,_

_That is how you spell it. I’m bad at writing letters, but I try often. I miss you, too. I forgot how big my bed was without you in it. Taking up all the pillows. Drooling. Being a general hog of space. Keeping me warm, even when the brazier goes cold._

_You do not need me to care for your hair; if you come back with a bird’s nest when you treat my own hair so gently, I’ll have to fight you._

_Speaking of; Grim called my swordsmanship mediocre. Grim talked to me, Bull. He also said that I should spar with you. Stop smiling. I can see you._

_The remaining rebel mages have chosen a name for themselves: The Bright Hand, and it reminds me of mellamu. The brightness my mother left me. Galani has taken to them very well, and they are taking to this strange freedom as fully as possible. See? I didn’t fight anyone, and only most of them had to die. This sounded lighter in my head._

_Nashan says not to mention her, but she also misses you. She’s given you a nickname that I will let her introduce._

_Dorian is leaving tomorrow, which means he will be gone long before your return. I’m sad about it, but he must go home._

_Your gifts have made me cry. The earrings are beautiful-I never want to take them off. The mulki is still strange on my face, but it makes me look grand. Like my face is a decoration in itself._

_I love you. Do you remember what you said to me, the night before I left? I blur the lines of you. You tricky shit. Well you do that to me, too. Just so you know. Everything you feel, I feel just as strongly. And, in kind, I hope that your dreams are calm. That you feel calm. As you say, taashath, kadan._

_Tell the Chargers I said hello. Tell Krem that Scout Harding  asked about him the other day. They are quite adorable._

_Even if you are on your way home soon after this letter, write me back._

_And do your fucking hair._

_-Kadan_

The words roll through his head in her voice. He rolls his dragon’s tooth between his fingers in the dark. No matter how far apart, for how long. Summer turns into fall daily, slowly, leaf by leaf; The Charger’s coffers are fat. He has the foreign urge to just go back to Skyhold.

But they’ve agreed to another big-ish job; it is what it is. That’ll be their last one in a good run, they they’d get back to Skyhold for a stretch. Maybe take Orlais for the winter. Put some feelers out. If the rebel mages were gone, and from what he ears on wind, the fighting was all but over, then work Orlais would pick back up again.

Thinking about work tends to slow his heart rate. Because it clears.

Bull lay back in  bed, closing his eyes. There are at least a few more hours until sunrise and too much to do before they head back to Ostwick.

He tries to go back to sleep, and does. He does not try to dream, doesn’t want to, and he does.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Iron Bull just tryna live and make that money, but folks keep tryna fuck with him! I don't get it!  
> I say, as I post the chapter I wrote.
> 
> I wanted to give yall a fight scene, I really did, but I got plans. Again, if you're still here, you a rockstar.  
> ***Don't be afeard to leave a comment of any kind, I love them and I love you all.***
> 
> ALSO: for those who have been here from the jump, today (3/28) marks a year since starting to write about Kimani and Bull! The prologue of Moon was posted a year ago today. Weee!


	21. Body Ache

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kimani ventures back into the Fade and gets tried. Like twice. Bull gets a little help.

Kimani thinks she'd be going back into the unprotected Fade because of Solas. For Solas, because he insists on haunting, on knowing and withholding from her, on hiding.

But that’s not true. She goes back out past the protection of her mother's gift because of Bull.

 

First, Dorian leaves. He’d warned her, he’d given her every update imaginable, read some of his correspondence aloud when they lounged together in his corner of the library once Tevene tripped her tongue and they put his tomes away. From the moment she met him, Dorian had always been unendingly _kind_. The sweetest man she’s ever met.

Spirits, she doesn’t want him to go.

“I’ll only say that I’ll miss you.” Kimani hugs Dorian tightly and he returns it twice over, reminding her of just how strong he is. He’ll have to be, in body and in mind, for what he intends to do in the Imperium. “And that I will march myself up to Minrathous if I have to.”

“It is absolutely no place for someone who can’t stand The Game.” Dorian smiles gently, smoothing her hair. “We aren’t any better than Orlais in that respect, I fear.”

“Dislike is different than lack of skill,” Kimani reminds him. “I can wear a snake’s face for you if need be.”

“But this face is so pretty.” He pats her cheek fondly, eyes shining. _Goodbye_ is a word that catches in their teeth. “I’ll write you when I arrive.”

She wants to take him all the way to his ship but he insists that prolonging this would kill him. He hugs Nashan tight and chuckles when she tugs a ring from his pinky finger and slips it into her pocket. He says something very softly to Galani who squeezes his hand with a smile and a nod. Sera sniffles, but keeps herself together as Dorian leaves Skyhold.

 _Spirits_ , Dorian leaves Skyhold.

Kimani and Sera look at each other, then look at the Leliana and Josephine.

“And then there was…us,” Sera says with a sigh. “Plus Bull. But he’s not here either, is he?”

“You’re forgetting about Cole,” Kimani reminds her gently, tugging at one of the earrings Bull sent her. “He’s still here.”

Sera shrugs. “Yeah…never see him though. Oh, I guess this was all a hero’s run anyway. Hero-ing’s done. One day we’ll all be gone.” She tries to smile and grimaces instead; sadness doesn’t settle well on her, not at all. Sera shakes her head. “Come on, Trinket. Show you something to make you laugh.” She holds out her hand to Nashan, who takes it quietly. Ever since Dorian had begun packing his things, Nashan had grown somber. Galani assured Kimani that it would pass quickly, that their young cousin didn’t know how to form anything other than strong bonds and so breaking them  was always initially a pain.

As the two women walk away, Kimani looks back to Josephine. “Well. I’ve got an angry Arl to appease, don’t I?” She asks, smoothing her vest. It is hemmed in a frilly material that pretends to be a skirt, in Josephine’s continued endeavor to get Kimani out of riding pants. Little does the Ambassador know that after 20 years of heavy robes swishing around her feet, aside from the free, light dresses her mother has given her, Kimani’s going to die in trousers. Never going back.

Josie nods. “Indeed. Surely Cullen has exhausted the Arl with his…charm.”

Kimani laughs and follows Josephine back to the main hall, squeezing Galani’s shoulder in passing. As much as she’d love to know what has become of her cousin and her dear friend, she leaves them to their privacy. Let them come to her if they wish.

Skyhold is changing. Skyhold has _been_ changing, but Kimani is starting feel it now. It’s starting to feel like an hourglass full of sand nearly all fallen to the bottom.

 

More to our point; Dorian is gone, which means Kimani will not hear his voice of reason because she cannot, even accidentally, go to him for counsel. 

…

 

Second, she investigates _mellamu_.

Kimani spends time walking in the Fade, following the thrum of her spirit barrier. She tries to glean what exactly it is, but can only tell that it’s her mother’s magic. She does this for weeks, this walking in what she assumes is a circle, the total area of her protected space. Here, nothing grows lest she will it, nothing watches her from the fog unless she crafts the eyes themselves.

Asha had called the _mellamu_ barrier a wall, that it had doors. Kimani thought her mother was just being creative.

But Asha was serious when she said that Solas would have to knock to gain entry to Kimani’s space.

And fuck her if she doesn’t hear the familiar rapping of his bony hand against a damned spirit barrier, right now. It echoes like thunder.

Kimani steels herself, drawing near to the source.

“Solas.” She knows exactly who it is. Knows it’s him and not some nameless demon and if it were, spirits. She’d simply be getting some exercise in.

When there is no reply, she repeats herself. “Solas.”

“Ah, Kimani.” His voice is muffled on the other side. “This truly is a formidable magic. Would you believe that I did not know anything like it before your mother cast? It’s magnificent.”

“What do you want?” Kimani moves along the barrier, feels its wall press cool against her skin as she splays her hands over it. “Why are you here?”

“Curiosity.”

“Is that so?”

“Indeed.” Kimani can hear him tapping on the other side. “Curious at to why you locked me out. And how.”

She snorts. “You don’t give the intruder a blueprint of the gate.”

“Is that what I am? Intruder? When _you_ searched for me?”

“You took dreams from me, Solas,” Kimani sighs. “That’s manipulation. Intrusion.”

“Much like your dear Iron Bull, if I’m recalling correctly.”

She cannot see him, but Kimani knows the sound of his self-important smirk. If only he knew how small the target he tries to hit is. “Except you were very literally _in my dreams_ for what seems like your own amusement. I’m not telling you anything about what separates us. Will you go now?”

“Have you been using the anchor?” He shoots back.

“No,” she says before she can catch herself, and frowns. “It’s quiet. I won’t disturb it on a hunch.”

“You think I’d come to you with a hunch.”

“I don’t know what to think of you anymore, Solas. You hide from me, you take from me, and you threaten _my_ mother. But I should believe the things you say are in my best interest? No,” Kimani laughs. “I don’t think so. So mull over this wall between us and sulk. I will not seek you out again.”

Honesty: The _mellamu_ makes her brave. She has never been able to shake the spine-chilling shiver that Solas runs through her but the _mellamu_ makes her brave.

She thinks the silence that falls is eternal, until she hears a soft sigh.

“I have yet another hunch for you, young one.”

“Solas-”

“I do believe your Iron Bull is having a bit of trouble. Qunari are very strange in the Fade, hard to find, but when you do…they’re like illuminated maps. Nothing more or less than what lay before you. Very interesting images.”

Kimani freezes, feels the cold panic burst in her belly. “You’re an asshole.” She pushes against the barrier with her knuckles. “Damn you for saying that.”

“I’m serious,” Solas says gravely. “He dreams of his previous life. He dreams of dying in it. The demons creep beneath the thin veneer of that nightmare. I _will_ say that he is very strong. But perhaps he is losing faith in himself.”

“ _Asshole_.” Because it is so probable, because Bull has been having nightmares for over a year, his fear leaving him uncertain. She remembers the look on his face when she’d agreed to be his executioner. Enough relief to be buried under.

Kimani feels buried, too. “You keep out of his head or I’ll give you a thorough lesson of my ability, Solas. I’ll rip you apart.” She stamps out that rash anger, or tries to. Her nails cut crescents into her palms.

“Hold. I’m simply passing along a message, no need to get violent,” Solas says lightly. “But perhaps, he’d appreciate a _somniari’s_ meddling if it were to stave off his barbarism.”

“Why do you do this to me? Say these things and sneer? I can…I can _hear_ you sneering as if I’ve ever wronged you.” Kimani is tempted. Spirits, she is so tempted to part through the barrier and meet him face to face. Look in his eyes and see if he’s lying. Break his thin nose for frightening her.

“Leave me alone. If you want to stay hidden, go. I’ll never look for you again. But don’t do this to me.”

“Good.” His voice sounds far away. Kimani holds her face in her hands, knowing that he’s leaving without giving a straight answer, yet again. “But perhaps you should look in on him. I don’t mean to insist, but…”

And then the silence stretches. Kimani stands, staring blankly into the mist, blessedly and cursedly alone before she wakes herself up.

Her quarters are pitch-dark and cold, so she coaxes fire in the brazier as she untangles herself from chilly sheets. Her bare footsteps are heavy as she pads to her desk, uncorking a bottle and pouring herself a dark wine in one smooth motion. She sips the bitter drink and coughs. Sleep clings to her like dew, the Fade thick and unwilling to leave her. As if it already knows her decision.

They both know.

“Cole.”

Kimani is used to him coming when she calls, which is arrogant of her. But she stands, waiting for him to comply as he has, time after time, since Adamant.

He doesn’t show, which serves her right. Kimani sets her goblet on the desk and rounds its corner, pulling cloak and boots on quickly. She needs advice. Dorian, though not a somniari, had at least a strong And Cole, with his trick words and secrets, he _knew_.

“You need to walk after you dream like that,” Cole says by way of greeting when she finds him along the battlements on her way to _Herald’s Rest_. He sits along the ramparts like a ghost, his signature hat topping him off in what would be eerie, if Kimani didn’t know Cole. “You get stubborn with yourself, then it makes you demanding. Rock hitting rock, lashing out. Crack.”

“I apologize,” Kimani says sincerely, leaning up against the stone wall. She offers him a sleepy smile. “Because I know it’s true. You should make me come to you more often, I think.”

“I will.” Cole pats the back of her hand. “I can’t tell you whether or not to go, though.”

“You can tell me what you feel from…however you know what I’m thinking.”

“You’re still Bright, Kimani,” He reminds her in his soft, watery voice. “I can still only hear what screams out loudest from you. _Should I go, Should I go, liars and thieves. Why do I cling to liars and thieves?_ Solas was good to you once. You believe he was.”

Kimani grimaces. “Now he’s gone. He says Iron Bull is in trouble.”

“The Iron Bull is so far away.” Cole folds his arms, his expression neutral as he looks down at her. “But his dreams are always nightmares. Nightmares, or nothing.”

“Did he come to you at all, back when they began?” Kimani can’t fault Bull for staying silent if his nightmares had gotten worse. They were his, the thing he needed to overcome. Maybe then he’d stop thinking about going mad.

“ _The kid already knows fuck him_ ,” Cole echoes, letting his head fall back. “ _He better not tell her_.”

“And you didn’t.”

Cole shakes his head. “I better not.”

“I better not,” Kimani repeats. She slumps against the stone as she thinks. “Ah, shit. Fuck it all to the Void.”

Cole hops down from his perch, his slight body curved like a reed. “You’re going to do it.”

She drags a hand over her face, wincing when her piercing pulls. “Yeah.”

…

 

Third. Truth time.

This is a secret between herself and herself, but Kimani has tried finding Iron Bull in the Fade before. Just to see if she could.

And she can. He is more difficult than Gatt, but Gatt had dragged her into the Fade after him; he’d _made_ it easy.

She doesn’t know why qunari are harder, what makes their relationship to the Fade different, but she knows she can find Bull.

And she knows Solas already has. It turns her stomach to think he’d taken a look into his head. In a way, it is worse than anything he could ever do to her; _she_ can fight back.

Bull feels heavy, his aura slight only until Kimani is very close, and then it threatens to hit her like bricks. Much like him.

She stands at the edge of her lover’s dream and watches the Fade warp around it like contorted ribbons and thick smoke. It is well-contained, because Qunari training must take dreams into account, even if their mages are gagged their entire lives.

“Alright,” She says aloud, binding herself with a protective spell. “If anyone’s got any objections, you better speak them now. I’m talking to you.” She jabs herself in the temple to indicate the Well of Sorrows. “Got anything cryptic to say?”

Silence. Of course there is silence. Why would it have something useful to say as she stands on the edge of what is probably a mistake?

Kimani reaches out to the dream and it snaps at her, a crackle of Fade whip to sting her fingers.

Poor Bull. No wonder he thinks he’s going mad. She teases the whip, drawing away at the last moment before it can crack her fingers.

“Well,” She scratches at her scalp and sighs, “Nothing to it, but to do it. Ready.”

Slipping into nightmares is like a knife between ribs, if you’re good at it. Quietly, Kimani pushes into Bull’s dream and finds herself in a jungle.

It reminds her of the Arbor Wilds, but _more_. The trees loom high and the heat thickens the fog and beneath her feat the ground is a sponge sprouting grass and spiny plants. The grass is splattered with blood. There are more qunari than she’s ever seen and there are humans, brown and painted with white and green brush strokes, wearing the mist like capes. Fog Warriors. Bull has mentioned them before.

The canopy shakes with an explosion, and Kimani crouches in the tall grass. She’s slick with mist and sweat as if she’d been in the fray, wipes the wetness from her face as the battle wages before her. She’s trying to differentiate between two dozen giant qunari to find _her_ giant qunari, and failing.

_Katara bas, ebost issala, anaam esaam Qun. Katara bas…_

The chant is Bull, it’s in his voice, and it sounds over the swampland battle as if he whispers it in her ear. She can’t turn to the voice because it is everywhere. _Shit._

Kimani watches the battle and it is ruthless in a way she has never seen. Warriors on either side fling themselves into death and murder with snarls and cries to their loyalty, tearing each other apart. The Fog Warriors have mages; more than once she sees a qunari soldier get sucked into the earth by angry, creeping roots, and Kimani becomes mindful of how the ground feels beneath her feet. The qunari, too, have mages; they sling unwieldy, dark spells like hissing curses and watch their attacks through slits in their metal masks.

Then she hears his laugh in the distance, broken off by a snarl and the grunt he makes when a hit lands. Kimani creeps along the perimeter of the battle and finds him.

Spirits, he’s _young_.

This dreaming Bull is covered in red: Some is paint in the markings of the Qun, some is blood. There’s a long gash across his back and Kimani knows that scar, near-invisible now save for a steak of silver rough to the touch splitting his heavy muscles. He’s a bit less heavy in this dream, his stomach hard enough to stop a boulder, arms smaller and the muscles angrier, jutting out with exertion, limned in veins. His hair is long, longer that it is since he’d let it grow, and braided with string left in so long it has matted into the plait. He has knotted the two braids together to keep them up, but with each of his hits they shake and unfurl. His face is a splash of red with two green eyes burning hot.

But he laughs.

Kimani watches Bull - Hissrad, this one is Hissrad, right? - hack through Fog Warriors with a joy she doesn’t understand. It’s different than even his pleasure in killing things since she’s known him. There’s something free about this, something wild and untethered and whole.

And then, she realizes that _her_ Bull is also in the fray. This man she knows, she knows the way his axe falls and the way his pants stick to him with blood and mud. His stupid shoes. His frazzled hair unbound, his eye patch. He’s not laughing.

 _This is where you go, then_ , Kimani thinks in wonder as she watches Bull act out his past beside his past self. _But this is just a dream. Little nightmare._ She jumps when her Bull takes a hit to the shoulder with a spear. He shakes it off and breaks the man in half. He turns amid the slaughter, looking up at the sky, into the trees, down at the dead at his feet. He looks into the foliage where Kimani hides, and she can see the panic in his face. It reminds her of a cornered animal.

“You’re trapped,” she says, understanding. “You don’t know how to get out. But…” She watches him turn back into the fray, and his younger self’s voice rings loud as he laughs again, calling out in Qunlat. “You want to be here as well. Confused. Oh, Big’un.”

Kimani sits back on her haunches and redirects her focus on this dream’s structure. The chaos of this battle is an echo of how this nightmare holds itself together. She shivers as she feels the raw Fade filter through like chill.

She hasn’t come here simply to unravel one dream, but to kill the thing that makes them nightmares. It will be a formidable demon but nothing she’s never seen before. It will be lurking, much like she is lurking.

The comparison makes her angry. _Where the fuck is this thing?_ Kimani creeps along, watching both Bulls battle a seemingly endless hoard. The qunari shout in qunlat, there’s more laughing, more chanting. Seheron is not a place she wants to know, oh spirits, she’s known war and this is more visceral than having her staff inches-deep in a Venatori’s chest.

Just a dream.

Kimani wants to drag Bull from the fray and hold him, waking him up with a kiss and a tug of this dream’s seams. But she needs to make sure Solas hasn’t lied to her. There’s something here that wants him. There’d better be.

 _Enough._ Kimani stands, mindful of the spray of blood. “Demon! You know I’m here. I know you’re here. Make this easy and make this quick, I’m a busy woman,” She calls, glancing over to the battle to see if they notice her. So far, they do not.

“You are as described,” the guttural voice of a demon purrs immediately and Kimani relaxes, rubbing the back of her neck. “Arrogant and brash. You believe you’ve already won this battle.”

“Good to know I haven’t lost my touch,” Kimani says, trying to gauge where the demon comes from. This is a nightmare it knows very well, if it can hide so. Growing, feeding off of _her_ Bull’s weakness. She stamps that anger out because that’s how you get killed in the Fade. That’s…spirits, that’s how you get _other people_ killed in the Fade.

“Go ahead, dream-walker, decide just how much you want to keep,” the demon says, and before Kimani can respond it appears in front of her. “I have eaten better dreamers than you, no question.”

“Then they weren’t better dreamers than me,” Kimani cocks her head at the dark figure. It refuses a proper form but it is wide, round with Bull’s siphoned energy. Parasite.

“ _Your Bull_. Adorable. Funny how you think because he tolerates your magehood that he is somehow yours.”

“That would do it, I think. Hit me where I’m mostly likely to be vulnerable. In my magic and my love.” She folds her arms and nods. “But he is my Bull. Now, I can cast you out or you can leave. If you’ve heard about me, you know what happens next. You know I like to tear things apart. The fatter the better.”

“I have never heard you give a demon a choice.” The demon sounds thoughtful, as though it taps its chin and wonders. Behind it, another explosion shakes the swamp. “Most interesting.”

A warning sign; Kimani doesn’t meet demons twice, not ones so distinctive, and its familiarity puts her on the offensive. They’re not chatting any longer.

“Alright, then.” Kimani pulls at the Fade around her gently, taking from the abundance of this dream without ripping its seams, for Bull’s sake. “Let’s get to work.”

This demon is strong, heavy with Bull, it even charges something like him as it tries to run her into the ground. It id stubborn, it’s old; it _feels_ old. Something about the way it fights her reminds her of age, of hard experience and knowledge honed beneath too many mornings to count. But it, like her, is arrogant.

And it does not know this, but it has much less to lose than her.

Kimani reaches into the black shapeless shadow and feels the center of its being. The proverbial beating heart. Crushing it is satisfactory, until she hears Bull cry out.

She whips around and finds the young Bull on his knees, lanced through with a curved, shining sword. Her heart stops for half a second before she remembers the important things: Dream. Wrong Bull.

She has been here too long if that frightened her. Oh, there were many reasons why Bull’s head had always been, even if unspoken, off limits.

Present Bull watches on as his younger self dies slowly. From her vantage point she can’t see his face, and with her pulse pounding in her ears she cannot hear his voice chant in qunlat any longer. Bull sinks to his knees, too.

She expects sorrow or fear, one of his old fears brought back to life to bring him low. But as Kimani draws near and really sees him, the pure relief on his face shocks her to her core.

Kimani doesn’t know what to think: A dream about guilt preyed upon by fear.

Bull stays on his knees as his younger self falls back against his feet, bending too much for his bulk and falling too hard to be anything but death. Bull’s head moves minutely as he follows the fall, and Kimani darts through the fray to reach him.

One hand over his eye, the marked hand splayed across his chest; Kimani wraps herself around Bull from behind, hugging him close. He flinches, and goes still.

“You lived,” she whispers, stroking his chest. “And so _many_ people love you.” She feels him tense, looks down and sees his fingers digging into his thighs. “You’re not going mad, damn it, and fuck you for making me promise to kill you if you did.” She kisses the base of his horn here, keeping her hand firm over his eye so he doesn’t see his younger corpse among the fallen warriors. The fight rages tirelessly around them but it won’t touch them now. Kimani makes the hand on his chest cool to chase away the heat.

 “ _Kadan_.” Bull relaxes a bit against her, sighing. “You’re here? Like, here? In my dream?”

“I am. And I’m really sorry,” She says earnestly. “I never wanted to breach this place. But that thing was feeding off of you. A demon.”

“And you killed it?” Bull’s hand covers hers. “That’s how this works?”

“’Course I did,” she kisses him again. “That’s what I do, didn’t you know? You don’t need to worry about it.”

“Always thought I’d be scared as shit to see you here. But I guess I’m not really seeing you.”

“But you know it’s me.”

“Shit, I _hope_ it’s you. But I know I can’t fight a demon with its hands already on me. Not asleep. So I really hope it’s you, _kadan._ If not, I’m really fucked.”

“Stop.” She hits him soundly on the chest, and he grunts. “Spirits, you idiot. You can’t tell a demon that. You fight till the end, horns up, what is wrong with you?”

“Tired,” he says immediately, truthfully. “I’m tired. Which isn’t a good sign, I’m only two years out. And…”

“Spit it out or don’t Bull,” Kimani says roughly, holding him tighter because something has happened in the Marches, she can feel it. “But don’t leave me on the edge.”

“The Ben-Hassrath have contacted me. They’re trying to break me.”

Her stomach drops. She remembers the failed assassination and wonders if this most recent contact was as half-hearted. But knowing the details now, here, will only weaken her barriers. Already, they’ve been here too long; Kimani thinks the end of Bull’s nightmare is usually his old self dying, and they’ve tarried beyond it.

“Fuck them. It doesn’t matter. You don’t break. You’re iron. Okay?”

“…yeah.”

“Good. I’m going to wake you up, now. I don’t know what time it is. But you wake up, and you eat something. Switch with whoever is on watch. Don’t go back to sleep tonight. Where are you all right now?”

“Road to Ostwick.”

“Kick ass.” She hugs him tight; Bull’s hand has slid from her hand up her arm and shoulder, his fingers tangled in the hair curling at the nape of her neck. “Get paid.”

She feels him smile. “That’s what I do, didn’t you know?”

“Yeah. Sorry for the headache, but this was a nightmare, and I’m…it’s gonna hurt.” Kimani reaches for the threads of this dream, feels their strength and pulls against them with more of it.

“Shit,” Bull mutters, squirming in her grasp. The structure of the dream unravels, dissipating into the raw Fade. “This feels-”

And he’s gone from her arms, awake. The dream unravels easily now, and Kimani stands in his consciousness for a moment longer before turning to the strongest pull of Raw fade and stepping through the falling dream.

It is noticeably cooler outside of his head. Kimani rolls her shoulders a few times, flexing her hands. She’s going to be a little sore in the morning.

The atmosphere darkens, threatening, and Kimani goes defensive. Something else?

 _Arrogant girl. Did you think that was the end of it?_ A voice seeps into her head.

Not something else. The same damned thing.

Kimani drags fadestuff into her hands as she goes rigid. If it was hard to detect the demon in Bull’s dream, it is even harder in the Fade which warps with the will of a thousand spirits, her own will being one of countless many. But it’s still here, this demon. It is omething bigger, then. Only partially present in Bull’s dream. Something meaner.

“Maybe I’m a little rusty after all,” Kimani admits, forcing herself to laugh. “A _little_ too arrogant for being so long out of practice. So, what is it you’re after?”

_I want to eat your soul._

“Naturally.” Kimani nods, belying the dread growing inside her. “I mean, of _course_ you do. _I_ would, if I were you. Theres’s a lot going on here.” She thumps herself in the chest. “But even if I’m rusty, I’m going to make you work for it.”

She looks around the warping Fade, waiting for a twitch of mist, a twist of fadestuff, anything to tip her to the creature’s location. She waits for it to exert some extra gust of energy that she can feel, and is left without a lead.

 “Come on out.”

It crosses her mind that this is Solas, since he is the one that brought her here. But then, Kimani can’t accept that he wants to harm her. He is dangerous, yes. He rose against her mother, _yes_. He twists her dreams and toys with her…but she is accustom to playing his games.

That thought stops her in her tracks. What had she let Solas do to her, in the name of having a companion that understood her?

_Here._

The spirit is fast; it reappears as a larger, dark shape expanded like wings, and it has a shadowed hand at her throat.

 _How slow you are._ It expands its darkness as Kimani struggles to break free, cursing herself as she gags. _I suppose I can’t complain about a meal._

Kimani reaches for the Fade, breathes through her rushing fear because if she lets it drown her she’s done. She pulls Fadestuff to her like bricks to fling at the darkness, snarling curses that skip off her tongue like bright-white fireworks so the darkness is pock-marked in light.

But the demon is a void. The darkness swallows her magic like sweets, and laughs. It snuffs her fire, melts her ice, takes lightning and webs it across the black like decoration in mockery. Kimani cries out, gagging and blinking away tears as its hold on her only tightens, threatening her windpipe.

 _This_ is what had a hold on Bull’s dreams? He should have been dead ages ago.

Kimani is not getting eaten by this thing. Not this demon. Not today.

“ _Fuck you_ ,” She growls and pulls on the Anchor. She hasn’t called on its magic since killing Corypheus. She hasn’t _ever_ called it in dreams but shit, the rest of her magic works here. If this can get her loose, she’s got a plan.

The Anchor is sometimes a key, oftentimes a hammer; now it explodes like a thunderclap, eating away the darkness so she can see the Fade again. Kimani feels the demon’s grip on her loosen and she wrenches herself out of its grasp, stumbling away from where a figure materializes in the black. Fuck whatever face it decides to wear, Kimani runs. She runs in whatever direction, it doesn’t matter, what matters is that she does this next bit right.

There are blank spaces in the Fade. There’s nothing there; No ground though a river runs through it, and no sky, though the breeze is cool. She has walked one of these spaces and remembered it at the Well’s behest. Remembers everything about it. There’s nothing there.

 _Nothing_ , the Well says to her, and she tries to think just that. Nothing. Not even a prayer as she fights the urge to look behind her at the demon, which most certainly follows.

Kimani closes her eyes and forces her mind to empty.  Where her pulse has rushed in her ears, now the Well sings quietly in elvhen, the same telltale lullaby.

The Fade beneath her feet disappears but she’s still running and she keeps running, until the feel of fadestuff against her skin is gone, and she feels the cold wet current of a river she knows is not there. Only then does she open her eyes and is met with a complete and overcoming dark, blacker than the demon and the night behind her eyelids.

Kimani doubles over. “Oh, thank fuck,” She pants, careless of the ghost-river or the unreal breeze that chills her already goose-bumped skin. “What the fuck. _Thank_ fuck.” She laughs at the way her body screams painful, and she knows it’s going to be worse upon waking.

 “Fuck this shit, I’m done for the night I think. Yeah, I’m done.”  She looks around the darkness and claps her hands, speaking to the Well of Sorrows. “Well done. Bless you. I need a drink.”

Waking up is easy, once the danger is out of reach. She pulls herself back into a calm and empty swatch of Fade and pulls at her own seams as quickly as she can, spooked and weak and unwilling to meet that demon again so soon. She can’t take another assault, and today is not her day to be consumed.

Upon waking, she rolls out of the bed and is sick on her expensive rug, retching until she pounds at the floor for relief. Her stomach is angry and empty. Her legs shake as she holds herself up on her knees, and her arms tremble. This, she can manage. She’s not sure how much her body can take, if this is something she can maintain, but for now she can manage this. This is alright.

But spirits, her hand- the Anchor- _hurts._ The mark burns a bright green that she can see spill through her nailbeds. It lights the paths of her veins. She can see her muscles cramping, pulling her skin.

She doesn’t know what to make of that.

…

Bull sits for a long time in the dark, mulling over what he remembers. Wincing at the stabbing pain behind his eyes and spreads like roots in his head.

If it – Kimani - had been a demon, he’d be possessed right now and doesn’t… _feel_ possessed. He can still feel the press of her lips on his face, her hand over his eye. Maybe a demon would have wanted him to see its rendered form, so that he would trust it more. Maybe.

But she hadn’t been a demon. He’s not possessed.

 _Crazy mage._ Bull thinks fondly. _I knew she’d be my hero again. Never knew when._ He hopes she’s alright. How it hurts her sometimes, he knows because she moves funny sometimes. She says that it’s nothing but she’s not a good liar. Not even good at pretending to be. Too brave for her own damn good, and only just slick enough to pull it off.

But the Fade is her domain. He has to trust her with it, and defer to her.

Bull does what Kimani told him to do; Krem is on watch but he won’t budge, looks worried because Bull doesn’t just…wander around in the middle of a good-ass sleep. Apparently he’d been snoring, which is the ultimate indicator. But Krem waves Bull down beside him and shares his jerky and shares his pipe and doesn’t ask any questions. Bull is more than good with that.

“Thought maybe I saw some folks in the bush,” Krem says after a while, yawning. “But it was three nugs. Then maybe I thought it was a trick. So I had Skinner and Rocky scout.”

Bull tells the Chargers about his run in with the Ben-Hassrath for their safety. Just in case his old order decides to up their game.

“Good call. We reach Ostwick tomorrow, yeah?”

“Yeah. In and out, unless you want to linger, then back to Skyhold.”

“Eh, I’m not in the lingering mood,” Bull mutters, smoking the pipe. Elfroot smoke has little effect on him but the act of smoking it is soothing. Holding smoke in his lungs and letting it out like fire. “Let’s go in, get the job done, then get our asses on a boat.” He looks at Krem though the haze, and his lieutenant nods.

“Yeah, I’m trying to get home too.”

Bull chuckles, clapping him on the back. The impact makes his head pound; he’d need some good old elfroot plant to chew for that pain, though the smoke seems to dull it somewhat. “Soon enough, Krem. Soon enough.”

They watch the night slip into morning in companionable silence.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those of yall who don't know, Kimani's theme song has been Dej Loaf's "Try Me" for like a year now.
> 
> We're moving right along! I'm so excited! It's getting down to the last bits! 
> 
> Let me know what you think.


	22. Set

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bull returns to Skyhold; he and Kimani have a chat about spies and dreams. Included: lengthy smut. Kimani reflects on the changes in Skyhold since Inquisition, and receives the letter that will send her and the squad back to Val Royeaux for the express purpose of hearing Orlais and Ferelden be fuckboys in person, together, at the same damn time.

“You’re back.”

“Your hand.”

They can weather a lot, these two. They have. They do. Spirits help them, they will.

Bull is happy to be back. He has missed this ugly little keep that Kimani has made home. He missed the crooked little garden he finds her in, crouched like an old lady digging roots from the ground. No one bothers the Inquisitor’s little patch of dirt, obscured by wall and tree. Her thousand-leaf and skullcap plants, the water hyssop all grow quietly here, bright and healthy _most_ of the time.

She’s got dirt on her blouse and dirt in the nails of both hands but one hand is tucked against her chest, curled like a claw, the Anchor just beginning to bleed through whatever special bandages she’s had Dagna put together for her. He knows the green light has never comforted her, but she’s lost herself in it more times than he’d counted. It worried him at first, but he's of the current opinion that a demon couldn't possess her even if she invited it in. His girl.

All the shit she has him feeling, the love…he fell in love with her as she fell in love with her magic, its scope widened by the Anchor.

Shit’s twisted, and he and the Chargers walked all morning to get here before dinner. Bull wants to be tired. But she’s got saddlebags beneath eyes already predisposed to look tired. And her hand is a fucking claw.

Kimani looks up and up at him from the ground, settled in her haunches with a basket full of roots. She looks guilty and hauntingly beautiful with her hair all over her head, stretched out with the fat little braids he sometimes helps her with. She raises her good hand to him and he lifts her up without thought, smearing his hand with soil. Before she can say anything, before they do what they have to do, he bends and kisses her. She tastes like peppermint and bitter from chewing on the leaves. Her claw hand is pressed between them; against his skin, it feels cold.

When he tries to pull away she wraps her arm around his neck, so he holds her by the waist and brings her with him. The way she locks her legs around his waist is a comfort he’s missed more than he thought before this very moment. If someone had told him the mean-eyed, quick-tempered Herald of Andraste, who liked to stab people with her stave and burn the rest would one day wrap herself around him like a brace, and that he’d _yearn_ for it, he’d have bet money against the notion. All of his fucking money.

 Time never seems to slow down. And it always seems to surprise.

“So? Is that all you’re gonna say? _Your hand_ ,” Kimani mimics him, pressing their noses together. She steals a kiss from him before he responds, gentle and wanting.

“Well, it looks like a fucking claw. And it looks like it hurts, _kadan_. What happened?” He watches her as she kisses him again, her good hand combing through the thick hair that curls at his nape. It feels ridiculously good, makes him shiver. Doubled with these little, sweet kisses, he knows that lesser men would be putty. Fuck, he wants to be a lesser man right about now. But his mind is too keen to let his cock, no matter what _it's_ trying to say, muddle it.

He wants to know what’s wrong.

“This isn’t working, is it?” Kimani says after a few more kisses, drawing one out so slowly that Bull twitches in his pants. She presses her lips to his cheek when he shakes his head.

“I really wish it was,” Bull chuckles, squeezing where he holds her up, "because this is just secluded enough for me to try fucking you against the wall.”

“Spirits. And you say these things after being gone forever-”

“-Just a season, really-”

“-without intent to commit.” She grips the hair on the back of his head tight, and he hisses. And she kisses it from his lips, stubborn and stalling because she knows there’s no swaying him. “Fine. So, you dreamt of me.”

“You visited a dream of mine,” He agrees, leaning back against the stone wall. She wears riding pants and a billowing, brown blouse so the soil stains don’t look as bad. The old, scuffed boots. Her day has been done for a few hours, he thinks. Beneath the soil she smells like a bath in the small tub, like olive oil and lemon oil and tallow soap.

“Yes, I visited a dream of yours. What do you think about that?” She pulls back from him, serious as she waits for an answer.

Bull shrugs. He remembers how much she’d apologized with her hand over his eye, but he remembers more being relieved to wake up without a demon lurking under his skin. “I think you saved my ass from something outside my line of sight, even if I still had my other eye. That sound about right?”

“That is the _only_ reason I’d go into your head,” Kimani says earnestly, nodding. “Please know that. But I couldn’t risk…I was baited with you and I couldn’t risk it. Not when it was something I could _help_ with. I never feel like I can help you, Big’un.”

Bull can tell she wants to look away, but she holds his gaze and it fucks him up because her eyes are shining. _Please, don't cry._

“And you were gone so I couldn’t even just _be_ there with you.”

“Hey, you are always with me.” Bull tugs at her dragon’s tooth. He sees that she wears the nose jewelry he’d sent as well. Treasure accenting treasure. “No matter how for or for how long, remember?”

She won’t be consoled, frowning still. “You know what I mean.”

“I do. But you _did_ save me in there, Kimani. My hero. I’d swoon, but that’s not really my thing,” He waggles his eyebrow, and she smiles. “I'll admit that I was scared shitless. Even after I woke up, I was scared. I’m still a little scared now? You’re fucking boundless, and I don’t always know how to deal with that.”

He kisses her again because her mouth is soft and minty and he’s missed the way she gives a little sigh when he flicks his tongue against hers. Her marked hand seems to relax, the Anchor flush against him as she presses her now-warm palm to his chest. It's strange to be comforted by the odd, absent feeling of the Anchor on his skin. At least it isn't cold.

“You have to tell me about the hand,” He says against her mouth. “And who _baited_ you, though I think I know.”

It was Solas, obviously. Scrawny little bald hobo.

Kimani huffs at him, rolling her eyes and nodding. “Yeah. Story for a story, though. Ben-Hassrath for the Anchor,” She nips his bottom lip as a flimsy distraction to the next bit she says: “It’s all connected, anyway.”

Now, _that_ he didn’t expect. But she’s been his teacher since Redcliffe; She’s been trying to make sense of magic for him ever since playing fadestuff over his hands that first time in Haven. He can trust her to make sense of this.

Bull adjusts her at his waist and carries her off to her rooms, heedless of how they must look covered in road-grime and soil. He’s too happy to be back in Skyhold to give a shit, even if he was inclined to give a shit. Which he isn’t. Besides, baths make most everything better.

…

Kimani can’t get her damned hand to stop cramping; it relaxes for a time once Bull has her in his arms, but by the time they make it back up to her quarters it’s back at it again. A few weeks have passed since fighting the demon in the Fade, and the Anchor hasn’t rested since. Dagna’s  special bandages do little to help beyond soothing some of the pain. None of her other muscles seize or ache: Just her hand, tight and stubborn and stone.

She has recalled Bull's nightmare in magic-less, flat dreams of her own, _nesomni_ dulling her connection to the Fade. On those mornings the hand hurt more. She goes into the Fade, and the hand hurts more. Kimani feels stifled. Not at all as boundless as Bull thinks, and not nearly as powerful as the awe in his words suggests. 

Bull wants her to bathe with him but she has already bathed, and they both know just how much talking they’ll do if she's naked and wet right along with him. Kimani instead scrubs the  dirt from her arms and dips her feet into Bull’s bath, unlacing the bottoms of her leggings and rolling them over her knees. She watches him  lumber over to the enormous tub, noting that he’s lost a little weight. The muscles in his arms are more pronounced. He’s half-hard still, and it heats her cheeks until he finally sits in the steaming water.

He is a week early returning, and she isn’t complaining one bit.

Bull begins with telling her of his letter from Gatt (so she _hadn’t_ killed him) and they bounce back and forth from there, carving out a path of stories that seem to make chronological sense. But not much more sense than that. Something is happening; Kimani knows that it is all connected. It has to be. Maybe it will make some kind of sense when they see it all together.

The power of Bull’s demon, at least, makes more sense once she knows about the letter and the nature of the agents he encounters. The demon was most certainly Fear, some strange, heightened incarnation of Fear. An old thing. Bull _would_ attract old demons. He feels things deeply, steadily. Rhythmic and easy. Nothing so frantic as what would whet some young thing’s hunger. And even without magic of his own, Bull is stronger than what a young demon would want.

Bull is stronger; his old life had called to him, perhaps is still calling to him, and he’d come back to her.

She's proud, in a strange way, that he had overcome the fear. He didn’t have to come back home.

Kimani pushes the wheedling thought away before it takes hold of her, and focuses on relaying what happened after waking Bull up from his nightmare. By the time she's done, he's dead quiet, balking.

“What the fuck,” He breathes. “What the _fuck_. It pulled a play on you. Do they do that?”

“They can,” Kimani says shrugging, “but usually, the play is in the illusion.”

“Hmm. Then, it played on your-”

“-confidence,” they say together, smirking. Bull strokes her calf gently, swishing her foot in the water. The bathing bowl floats by and Kimani scoops water into it to dump over his head, a quiet rebuttal.

“But the strange thing-and I didn’t even notice this until maybe a week afterward- was that it didn’t use your weakness at all. Didn’t taunt me with how easily you might succumb to a demon. It just…mocked your love for me. Mocked my magic. _My_ arrogance.”

“And that’s strange because it was _my_ demon.”

“Very good.” She leans over to kiss his gnarled forehead, slapping his shoulder when he makes to pull her in.

“Assholes like Solas always show up again,” Bull says with certainty. “ _That_ is true arrogance. And when he does, I’m breaking his neck.”

“It doesn’t make sense, though. I don’t have anything he wants.”

“Either you do and you don’t know it, or he’s just fucking with you. He’s an antagonistic little shit, he’s always looked at you like prey, and he’s a weird fucking bald _liar_.”

“Bull.”

“I know liars, Kimani. _I’m_ a fucking liar. He’s a _fucking_ liar and a bad liar and I still could never figure out what the fuck he was lying about. Pisses me off,” Bull mutters, sinking into the water. “And you loved him.”

She bristles at that, jerking her foot away from his caress. “I did not.”

“No, you did. He was the most familiar thing to you. He was a comfort. I saw that in Haven before I really knew what it meant for you. And you’re a lover, _kadan_. Maybe you don’t want to be, but…” He shrugs, holding out his hand to her foot. “You’re mean as a bear when you want to be, but you’re a lover and you loved him. It’s why you’ve entertained him this long. It’s why you even answered to him in the first place, even with your mom’s…thing doing whatever it’s doing. He banked on that; Solas doesn’t speak without an audience.”

Now, Bull’s eye is closed. He still holds his hand out to her, his other hand rubbing soap lazily into his chest.

Kimani glowers at him. She has revived the search for Solas, Leliana sending the order with a little smirk of her own. She has sent a letter to her mother: Half dutiful daughter, half confused _somniari_. She has considered asking the Well, but what would they know know about one solemn, elven apostate?

Kimani remembers the time spent with Solas in his rotunda, particularly after Adamant: sleeping on his couch, dreaming, laughing in the morning at his dry humor. Drinking his tea. She’d carved half of her mother’s necklace on his little table. He’d been the confidant she confided in with more action than words.

_Ah, fuck._

Kimani gives Bull back her foot and he grins, pressing his thumb into her arch as he massages it. Her hand throbs, and so she massages it.

“I see why you say it’s all connected,” Bull says after a while. “We know Solas doesn’t give a shit about me, Tal-Vashoth or not. I’m still a big, gray beast with no inner compass, blah blah savage. But he knows he can use me to his advantage with you, especially in the Fade. The more I think about that, the more it pisses me off. He saw in my dreams that I was having issues. And the nightmares picked up again once the Ben Hassrath contacted me. So he used it to do whatever he’s done to you. Jackass has been keeping tabs on me.”

“But to what _end_?” Kimani asks, exasperated. “What does he want?”

Bull looks at her, his craggy face twisted into something both angry and very serious. “Oh, he’s gonna tell you. Like I said, he’s gonna show up. Now, whether he does it before or after I hurt him depends on how quick he is with his little silver tongue.”

…

After Bull’s bath, they welcome each other back.

Bull feels a little reckless but he gentles where he knows he must. He kisses her everywhere; the bottoms of her feet, her belly button, the faded tattoo in the small of her back, her collarbones, both ass cheeks. She laughs at him when he parts her hair and kisses her scalp, too. She’s breathing a lot faster by the time he buries his face between her legs, and he’s shaking a little himself. Anticipation: a few months of arousal that his hand could only help with, but never completely fix.

He’d really missed the ways she tastes. He missed the harsh sounds of curses, his name, and words unintelligible. He’s thinking growing his hair was a great idea because she pulls it like a damned barbarian and the pain is _really_ good. It slides down his spine like a liquid heat.

He bends her near in half and licks her until she comes the second time, legs trembling over his shoulders. Shit, He’d missed the way she comes apart, a shuddering mess: brow furrowed, her hand tight on his neck.

“ _Come here_ ,” She hisses, surprising him by pushing him onto his back. He's laughing until the wet pressure of her tongue drawing a line up his cock has him gripping at the sheets, cursing as she fits him into her mouth. She takes him slow and deliberate and he’s gonna explode, and that’s not how he wants it. He wants to be buried in her, and he wants her yelling.

“Ride me,” He pants, stroking her cheek. “Right now.”

Kimani hums before releasing him with a lewd _pop,_ smirking. “Someone’s demanding.” Her thighs are soft as she straddles him.

“And someone’s obedient,” He shoots back, grinning. Her marked hand twitches but she doesn’t pay it mind and she doesn’t want him to pay it mind as she slides onto him. He doesn’t _want_ to pay it mind, he just wants to fuck her senseless. But the hand convulses.

“Your hand-”

“-Is fine. Shut up,” She breathes, rolling her hips against him so his breath stutters. “ _Trust_ me, this is helping.”

Bull laughs and groans as she finds a good rhythm, breasts bouncing in time. He rolls a swollen nipple between his fingers, cups the heavy flesh.

“That sounds fake, _kadan_.”

“Shh.” She leans forward, stretching over his torso. “Kiss me.”

 

Kimani thinks sex actually might be making her hand feel better; the pain ebbs and flows as Bull starts thrusting up into her, his hands tight on her waist. She’s floating somewhere before her next climax and she wants to stay here, feel the fullness of him and hear how heavy she gets him breathing. The little shake on his exhale. The small whine as he kisses her.

It’s heady to be able to bring such a man down. It’s so _good_ to have him here after so long, hand be damned.

Her hand tightens in response, frigid. The Anchor glows steadily, and she turns her palm back to his chest to snuff it out.

“Kimani.” Bull’s voice is so soft; she comes out of her thoughts and hears how she pants, feels how she trembles. “Stay.” He grinds her down onto him, panting. He’s close. She can feel his stomach muscles jump under her legs. She can see the way he looks at her. Like there is nothing else but her.

“Tell me what you want,” she says, tracing his mouth with her thumb. “Whatever you want.” Her thumb slips between his teeth. “I’ll be good.”

 

He won’t bind her because her of her hand, but he has a simpler idea. She yelps when he flips her over, dragging her beneath him and pressing his mouth to her ear.

“This is how I’ve imagined you for weeks,” He says softly, wrapping one arm around her breasts. His cock throbs between her thighs, jumping at the way she grinds back against him. “Would you like me to fuck you like this? Hard, like this?” He butts against her on _hard_ , making her gasp. He’s slick with her slick, can feel her fluttering, her frantic heartbeat.

“You know I do,” She whispers, spreading her legs wider. “Please do.”

Smiling, he reenters her in one jarring thrust. And again. Her headboard hits the wall with each, and Bull growls lewd things into her ear. Tells her how good and wet she is, how she quivers around him; she takes him so _well_ now, had she noticed? Asks her how much she likes it like this. How much she missed it. His hips snap against her ass without reprieve. Should he stop?

 _No_ , comes her strained reply, cresting a low, stretching moan. _Do **not** stop._ Her arms shake and he takes some of her weight, kissing her jaw. Behind her ear. He murmurs that he has her, calls her _kadan_ , and holds her tighter when she whimpers. He only ever hears such soft sounds from her here.

The creak and groan of the bed, the _bang_ of her poor headboard, his satisfied growling, makes them even softer.

“Bull, I want to come.” She’s kept her hands away from her clit without him asking. Wanting to deny herself as well. Waiting on him.

Fuck, he loves this woman. It’s ridiculous.

“Do it now.” Bull bites down on her shoulder and rubs between her legs, feeling himself coming loose. “Shit, _kadan_ -”

They’re a mess. A cursing, trembling, growling mess. But they pull it off.

Kimani laughs breathlessly as he sinks to his forearms, pressing her into the bed as he catches his breath. He kisses the back of her neck, licks away the salt. Breathes in the smell of her hair.

“It is _very_ good to have you back, my love.”

She’s not a small woman by human standards but she feels small under him all the same. He puts her back together with a tender hand, comes back into himself as she kisses him on his arms, neck, chest, mouth; whatever is closest as they reconfigure themselves. That’s how she tries to put him back together. It works. Shit, it works so well.

“Welcome back,” Kimani murmurs, curled against his side, once they’ve settled.

“Welcome back.” Bull can’t help himself. “Ha. Come.”

She stops rubbing his stomach and looks up at him with the with most _finished_ expression, and sighs.

“I hate you.”

“You really don’t.”

 

…

 

Autumn is a slip of a season before the snow comes. Kimani barely registers it beyond the ridiculous parade of meetings she entertains from Ferelden and the endless fall of orange leaves.

Arl Eamon sends generals, surly and scowling at Kimani and the looming line of her stave, to try and instill some good ol’ Ferelden-style apprehension in her and Cullen. Keep them in line, as if anyone was doing anything but trying to fix what they’d had to break to save the world. As it were, Ferelden wasn’t as badly damaged as Orlais, and the Inquisition had largely retreated from the area. But that isn’t enough for them.

Kimani knows _why_ they want her gone, but she doesn’t understand why they think it makes _sense_ so soon after everything. Hardly two years, the scars of damage just beginning to fade.

By the end of such meetings these generals realize the error of their ways, that intimidation is not something neither Commander nor Inquisitor know. They leave with their faces red and twisted, and Cullen laughs harder than Kimani has ever seen him do. Doesn’t even give one of his tight-lipped rejoinders, just claps her on the shoulder and laughs right out of the war room with his arms full of missives and one of his runners at his side. But then, Kimani remembers that these are his kind of people.

Cullen sends the remaining Hinterlands camps a few more soldiers eager to be off their asses and goes about his work. Kimani writes a letter to Arl Eamon that never receives a response; Kimani writes a letter to the Fereldan Crown that never receives a response. She thinks that just makes them snobs, really. Even the _Divine_ had responded.

Well. Not the last time. But in the beginning, at least.

She hacks away at her frustrations on dummies and Bull, who takes Grim’s suggestion seriously, begins to spar with her. Simple things. One day she gets to look particularly fierce knocking her 7-foot qunari to the ground as another round of ranking soliders- sent this time by Bann Teagan- comes to call. Later, she finds out Bull did it on purpose, and then spends the next couple of weeks working to knock him down on her own merit. No magic. Big bastard.

In the following weeks, Kimani often wonders if she’ll wake up one day and find something more pressing than scare-tactic captains at her gate. If Ferelden’s going to try and push her out of the Frostbacks, even.

But she just wakes up to winter.

“Time for my coat,” She says the morning that first snow falls, looking over her shoulder at Bull. “Finally.” She breathes more life into the already raging hearth fire.

“And weather-appropriate hot chocolate,” Bull adds, stretching. He comes over to where she pulls on clothes in the mirror and takes her marked hand. “How is it this morning?”

“Same.” She flexes it for him before slipping from his grasp, and he moves away. “Has Leliana heard anything…?”

“No,” He says with a sigh. “And it’s starting to piss her off.”

“I bet you enjoy enjoy a flustered Nightingale.”

“…Yeah, I do.” He smirks. “It’s how we work. But we’re still looking and we’ll keep at it. _After_ breakfast.”

Nashan has hot chocolate with nutmeg and cinnamon and cloves in giant mugs waiting for them when they plod into _Herald’s Rest_. Her younger cousin has fallen so well into Skyhold’s fabric that Kimani wonders if it wasn’t her plan all along; often Kimani watches her banter with the tavern guests as if she’d been working here since the beginning.

 Sera already sits at the table with Dagna, face-first in her own mug. Dagna sips daintily, chewing on a piece of honeyed bread as she, too, asks after Kimani’s hand. Together, they simply try to keep the cramping at bay; Dagna’s experiments haven’t found anything other than what they already know, and being Fade-touched would only matter if her hand had been cramping like this from the start. Kimani had never seen Dagna frustrated until they’d started trying to unlock whatever secret were left in the Anchor so she began inviting her for chocolate, too.

Galani strolls in later, his copper braids flecked in fresh snow on the melt. He brings one of his friends from the Bright Hand; Kimani knows this one. Mayra is promising, and in awe of Galani. Kimani recognizes her cousin’s want of a pupil in both Dorian and herself, and feels happiness and nostalgia when the boy calls Galani “master.” Never “enchanter.” He must have told the boy, or Mayra had already misspoken and known the consequences. Either way, he is eager to prove himself. Kimani often sees him sparring with Galani out behind the mages’ tower and he’s very good with lightning spells, better with ice.

He also gets hot chocolate.

Some mornings, Josephine will join them and sometimes, she’ll convince Leliana. Cullen doesn’t like hot chocolate but he likes the company, their company. Won’t admit it more than once in a while. This morning though, it’s just them, mulling over wintertime tasks and very-important snowball fight strategies. Because there _will_ be snowball fights, so help Sera. And ice-skating, if she can arrange that as well. But most certainly snowball fights.

The Chargers all take their places around the tavern, and its regulars filter in as the morning truly takes hold. Its sounds and smells are an easy routine, a calming ritual.

Kimani misses the old voices of her friends. She misses them terribly, even as they all write to her. She still has Bull and Sera and the Chargers, and it helps. But now it is quieter, and it is different. She lapses into her stunted Rivaini, which Nashan swears has gotten better, and has to translate for Sera and Dagna and the others. They have to explain things to her cousins sometimes, when they refer to the war. But mornings like this are good. Skyhold was always going to be a place of change, so she can’t be upset that it has, in fact, changed. And that it is going to change.

At the very least she can forget the Anchor’s pain for an hour or two before her days really start, and that’s enough for her.

 

 

In the middle of winter, a meeting in the War Room (they never change the name) begins with tension because Josephine has a letter from the divine seat of the Chantry, and everyone in the room can guess how Vivienne feels about Kimani these days. The Sunburst seal is visible even from across the war table, winking when the light hits it. It wouldn’t be like Vivienne, Divine or no, to wait so long before returning to crush an issue. Kimani hopes that it isn’t about the Bright Hand. They’re peaceful. Intellectual, reclusive, radical in thought. But they remain behind Skyhold’s gates. She cannot bother them.

_Just open the letter and see._

“An Exalted Council” Kimani says, reading. When she’s done she has Josephine explain it to her again, and feels her ire begin to boil. She pinches the bridge of her nose, just beneath her _mulki_ jewelry, and finds it still a bit tender.

_It’s as if I never did what I did for them. As if I’m not still doing for them._

_Well, at least she’s leaving the rebels alone. Not that it matters, if we disband._

Laying out a travel plan is simple and quick, but strategy for simple existing in Val Royeux again takes longer. She’d be returning after near-every noble in Orlais had seen her struck to the ground.

Shit, she’d taken a _smite_ for Vivienne, and this is how they meet again?

 _No, it’s alright._ She takes a deep breath. Josephine is at her side, squeezing her hand. They would have to re-kindle their tea-times;  she has become a bit of a heathen again since Empress Celene’s ball.

 

So, they will return to Val Royeaux in spring. Kimani hopes it to be the last time they summon her with complaints. The last time they summon her at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alrighty folks, what comes next happens during and after the Trespasser DLC. As usual (if you're familiar with the first fic, anyway), I'll try my damnedest to make the in-game things new and fresh. 
> 
> As per usual, thank you for sticking with this! We're for real almost done, now. 
> 
> Questions, comments, concerns, etc, are love and always welcomed!


	23. Turn Away

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kimani attends the Exalted Council in Orlais, and it ends up being the least headache-inducing part of her visit.  
> (Trespasser DLC)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part 1 of 2 DLC chapters. Tried hard to make this a rendition and not a carbon-copy run through, but Trespasser is important for Ki and Bull and it needed space. Hope you enjoy!

The morning of the Exalted Council is peaceful. Kimani leaves Bull to laze in bed for another half-hour and goes out to sit in the gardens of the Inquisition’s villa. Once again, they take residence across the strait in Halamshiral; Kimani likes it this way, likes the separation from Val Royeux proper. She doesn’t have to wake immediately to intrigue.

She hasn’t come out for any real reason. She doesn’t feel anxious, just calm. Maybe she’s not fully awake; she hugs her knees to her chest and watches the sun rise through bleary eyes.

“Hey.” Nashan comes and sits next to her, drowning in her over-sized nightgown. It is old and ratty and patched in places, but she loves it. “Gimme your hand.”

By now, everyone’s aware that the Anchor pains Kimani worse than before. Galani had demanded a thorough description of the new affliction, and of course Nashan had listened in.

Kimani lifts a questioning brow. “What are you looking for?”

“It’s bothering you.”

“It’s been bothering me. Have you found some way to fix it, then?”

“No.” Nashan shrugs. “Not yet so fancy as you and Gala, but the dead will heed me yet. I just want to see. To feel. Give me your hand.” Her locs are freshly twisted at the root, and she smells like olive oil and peppermint. Her hands smell like peppermint too, the skin sheening with oil.

“Usually, I’m the one asking for people’s hands,” Kimani says in surrender, letting Nashan press at her knuckles and squeeze her fingertips one by one before gripping her tightly.

“Keep doing your magic.”

Kimani pulls at the Fade, watching the sky open to the orange and rose of dawn as her cousin examines her. She lets fadestuff blade like grass, swaying as if by breeze.

And then her hand convulses so sharply that she pulls away from Nashan. But her cousin holds tight, her thin, bony fingers like a vice.

She frowns at Kimani’s hand, twists it this way and that, and then frowns at Kimani. “That’s weird.”

“Ha, that’s one way of putting it.”

“It’s been this weird before?”

“Not even when I was in the Fade itself,” Kimani confesses. “I think I was duped by someone I shouldn’t have trusted.”

“That sounds about right.” Nashan lets go of Kimani and slips her arms around her waist instead.

Clan Lia boasts robust women, but Nashan’s elven blood makes her small. No less deadly, if her training with Dorian and inclination to violence told Kimani anything, but she’ll be twenty in a week and the top of her head barely reaches past Kimani’s bosom. Now, she lays it there like a child. Kimani can only gape down at the top of her head at such a show of affection.

“You’ll figure it out, _ahat,_ ” Nashan says with a certainty that Kimani has lost. “And we’ll be here with you no matter what those _enkidu_ nug-fuckers have to say about it.”

Kimani smiles. “ _Enkidu_ nug-fuckers, huh?”

“Give me a few hours and I’ll do better, _damiq._ ”

 

*

“Sister Leliana would like to speak with you in private.”

 

Kimani doesn’t like the seating arrangements of this Exalted Council. She’d much rather stand if she must listen to Arl Teagan foam at the mouth. The Orlesian ambassador- Duke whomever, with his mask he is as good as no one - slips words like knives into her ribs, but she’s accustom to the pain. Orlais would wound her only to bind her back up with shackles they’d expect her to take for silk bandages.

Kimani looks Divine Victoria directly in the eye and grinds her teeth. Vivienne, with her holy robes, is still mistress of the Grand Game. But at at the spa, Kimani thinks they they had shared a moment without it.

Unfortunately, this is not the spa.

Val Royeaux is beautiful in the spring. Shit, Val Royeux is beautiful in the winter. Its guilded buildings bend to the seasons, breathing them in and wearing them on their bricks so the masquerade drums ever on. Kimani greets the nobility that cannot reconcile her with poise more on par with a soldier’s stature: defense and offense dancing together, carved into something near-palatable by the sensual curves of her uniform. She is beautiful to soften the anger she cannot hide. She wears white so her ferocity is feather-light. Ethereal.

Josephine, in preparation for the journey, had only suggested Kimani remove her _mulki_ jewelry once. She hadn’t seemed to want to, but she had all the same. The glittering piece sits over her nose proudly, now. For a second, it shines light directly into Arl Teagan’s eye.

Spirits, she hates Orlais. But Dorian is here. And Thom, and Cassandra. Varric, as well. She hasn’t been so happy since visiting Ostwick.

And she hasn’t been so livid in _years_.

“I’m sorry. There is an emergency,” Kimani whispers to Josephine, and before the Ambassador can kill her the way her expression suggests she’d like to, Kimani follows the elven servant out of the hall.

The Council is offended. “Are we not worth the Inquisitor’s time?” Teagan shouts after her.

_No,_ Kimani thinks, _not when you only plan to tear me apart._

In the cramped supply room to which she is led, Leliana is there along with Bull and a body. Where the Nightingale is cool, sharp, her mind turning the situation over expertly, Kimani sees fear in Bull’s eyes.

The dead qunari lay, his skin painted in _vitaar_ and blood, his horns capped in bleached, carved bone. Kimani crouches low to see him better. His wounds are obscured by his armor. He smells like horn salve and leather oil and death. He smells like magic, the strange twang of magic.

Bull is hesitant. Shifty. He mulls the scene over for too long. He thinks he’s missed something and he can’t figure out what and he’s translating things back and forth to try and find the words that must have fallen through.

Kimani can see all of this played out in his naked expression. The fact that she can read him makes her afraid.

…

 

Bull never thought he’d have to travel through Eluvians. He’s heard enough of the Crossroads from Kimani’s tales. It’s all freaky elf magic shit that leads to secret worlds; He’s got it. He gets it. It’s fine.

But the Qunari are being stupid. Playing a game that doesn’t follow.

“Thank the Spirits this thing works,” Nashan says through Dorian’s magic sending crystal. “And in other realms as well. How lucky!”

The kid had wanted to join but she’d been opposed by her cousins, by Dorian; even Sera had put in word against her coming. Kimani instead brought Bull, along with Cassandra and Dorian, to investigate. Like old times, almost. In the old times he’d been a much better spy.

Bull doesn’t like Eluvians, but fucking Beresaad foot soldiers shouldn’t be traveling through the things either. Everything is out of whack. And now he wonders about the agents that had contacted him.

He’s missing things. The Ben-Hassrath are right under his nose and he’s not seeing them.

Bull had checked Skyhold once he returned from working in Ostwick. He’d _checked_. Spies were inevitable, and the further away from the Inquisition’s core the harder they were to spot, but he’d checked.

The foot soldier that they’d found on the palace grounds had been young. Big, but young. Reminded Bull of himself a bit, but that wasn’t hard to do when everyone coming out of Par Vollen more or less looked like you. The soldier had worn his _vitaar_ to mimic the way bird’s feathers overlapped.

Yeah, he’d been young, still fascinated with things like feathers, with pretty birds.

“Are you alright, Iron Bull?” Cassandra appears on his seeing side, looking straight ahead. Time has been good to the Seeker and her eye is as keen as ever, her demand for the truth undiminished. Her love for Kimani extends to him, and he appreciates it.

“I’m good, Cass. Just trying to piece together the puzzle.”

She peers into his face for a moment before nodding. “Something is wrong with Kimani.”

“Well of Sorrows got chatty when we crossed over,” He says, looking ahead to where Kimani stalks about. “All this ancient elven shit is right up its alley.”

Cassandra had gone deep into that elven temple in the Arbor Wilds with Kimani, had met the Sentinels. Bull had been too busy getting sliced open to catch up. He still doesn’t know what happened with the dragon, because there _had_ been a dragon, but she hadn’t wanted to tell him. So he dropped it. Now, he wishes that he hadn’t.

The qunari they meet and kill in the Crossroads are simple soldiers, simple assassins. Bull cuts them down with a pointed focus, remembering the ways they’d been taught to feint and slash as young agents. They were kept separate from the _antaam_ , but once they all fell into Seheron together the fighting wasn’t so different. Remembering how each weapon had its own style. He’d learned them all at one point or another in Seheron. The maul had always been his favorite.

Kimani is in singular form today. She hasn’t touched her sword, and she casts with her staff in what is almost a dance. She mouths her spells, which he rarely sees her do, and he thinks it has to do with whatever the Well is doing in her head. But she’s focused. Bull lets Cassandra fall into her old position on Kimani’s flank, and he keeps an eye on Dorian.

They leave dead qunari after dead qunari in their wake. Familiar. Bull just keeps reminding himself of where he is, and turns away from ghost faces.

…

 

_Dread Wolf, Dread Wolf, Dread Wolf,_ the Well of Sorrows chants, singing the name in Kimani’s ear as they try to make sense of the Crossroads. Of the large frescoes of this Fen’Harel and the slaves he freed. Then doomed.

What a mess.

Back in Val Royeux, it is also a mess. Kimani chews on an embrium stalk to keep the pain in her hand from overcoming her. Power has begun to build, swelling her like a new bruise; if she catches it she can expel the magic before it sets to bursting. It deflates like a long exhale, the essence shimmering in the air as it dissipates. Her advisers don’t seem to notice beyond her pained expression and she’s glad for it; the Qunari are threatening to invade, despite Bull thinking otherwise. Josephine is tight-lipped, anger settling unnaturally along her fine features. She glares daggers at Kimani before remembering herself, and softening. Kimani wishes that she wouldn’t. _Be angry with me. Shit, you have more reason than anyone._

The Exalted Council is important, and Josephine is their most valuable asset. And the Inquisitor had walked out on the most powerful seats in the land with little more than an “excuse me.”

Arrogant. Bull’s nightmare demon hadn’t been completely wrong in that regard.

*

They go back through the Eluvians and find themselves in the Deep Roads. Dark and damp and tight-feeling even as the caves grow hollow and wide. Bull makes jokes about fitting, and Kimani can’t find it in herself to laugh.

The sense of foreboding that had followed her from Skyhold to Val Royeaux only grows stronger, her entire back an unreachable itch.

_Dread Wolf. Dread Wolf._

The Well sounds frantic. Frightened. She can’t do much to console the other voice in her head but she can do something about this Viddasala giving erratic, enslaved mages lyrium…Kimani sees the fear in this ex-Templar qunari convert’s eyes and believes it. She also knows that if she doesn’t kill him now-  and she can _feel_ Bull behind her, begging her to kill him- that the qunari will.

She lets him go anyway. Hopes he can find his own way out.

“It doesn’t make sense for the Qunari to invade now,” Bull says. He insists on taking up the rear and so speaks loud enough for her to hear up front. “It doesn’t follow. It doesn’t even follow _old_ tactic.”

“That Templar was very convinced of this Viddasala’s derailment,” Dorian says grimly. “So it may very well be that we are working with a leader gone rogue. And with repressed hedge mages fed lyrium…Kimani…”

“They can be deadly,” Galani replies. Her elder cousin insisted on coming with them. _My skills will certainly be more useful through magic mirrors,_ he’d said. His armor leaves his forearms uncovered, his blood-casting scars on display like warnings. “They will be a surprise. Their magic is…a trial to understand until you’re faced with it. With lyrium, they will be explosive. But even they will bend to necromancy, blood magic. The Fade, on a leash,” he nods to Kimani. “Not to mention we have one of their former agents on our side, as well a Warden and a Seeker. I suppose we’ll see how well you all fair in your retirement.”

Kimani turns in enough time to see Galani squeeze Dorian’s hand reassuringly, and to see Dorian squeeze back.

“I don’t plan on dying in this cave, Inquisition. Neither should any of you.”

Only when they hear qunari up ahead does Galani pull a knife that Kimani has never seen out of a fold in his cloak that she’d never expect to house a knife, and waves the blade like a banner. Its blade is clean but Kimani can easily imagine it covered in his blood. Then, it disappears again.

“Only if we need it.”

Dorian goes pale and steps away, coming up beside Kimani. They attack as one when they turn the corner.

 *

Back and again in Val Royeaux, smelling like smoke and underground. Kimani bleeds from her right shoulder but the cut is shallow; she winces when Cassandra’s arm brushes the bandage and adjusts her friend, apologizing when she jostles Cassandra’s broken leg. They’d healed it enough to get her out of the caves, but she needs a proper healer. And a bed.

Once Cassandra is squared away, Kimani balls her hands into fists so they can stop shaking. The Anchor lights her hand up to her elbow, barely contained by her glove and sleeve. It slicks the cellar that she and her advisers meet in with the all too familiar green glow. It reflects slivers of light like Fade spirits.

The Qunari have been planning this for some time. From within _The Inquisition’s_ ranks.

Kimani feels sick before anything else, because the advisers look at her. They try to keep the accusations in their heads but they shine through.

_The Ben-Hassrath have spies in the Inquisition._

_Unfortunately, it makes sense._

Leliana doesn’t want Kimani to take Bull after the Viddasala; the color drains from her porcelain face when Kimani bids her, in harsh tones, to hold her tongue. For a second, Kimani sees the Nightingale that had frightened her in the early days of the Inquisition. But there are years between then and now and Kimani raises herself to her full height, unafraid and daring her spymaster to strike.

 “ _Enough_.” Josephine nearly throws her clipboard, enraged at what she calls their recklessness. Didn’t they know what was at stake? What she fights to uphold? They might subdue the Qunari threat, but would they throw their political chances out of the window? All of their work? Could they not war _and_ politic? They would have to win both, if the Inquisition were to survive the week.

Well. She isn’t wrong.

Kimani thinks this is when she knows that they are finished. It just connects. Epiphanic. The Inquisition has come to Val Royeaux to come undone.

A lance of pain interrupts her premature mourning, hot and determined as it shoots up her arm, up her neck, lighting the space behind her eyes on fire so she sees white. Stumbling back against the cold, damp wall, Kimani feels tears slide down her face. Her expression buckles and for a moment, she thinks she might actually be crying.

_This thing is really trying to kill me this time. Worst timing ever._

She doesn’t know why her luck is so bad. Qunari invaders, unknown agents of a false elven god only aiding in the discord. The Anchor going murderous.

_Dread Wolf. Dread Wolf,_ the Well croons.

Kimani presses at her temples.

_Dread Wolf. Dread **Wolf**._

“ _Shut up_ ,” she snaps at the Well and her bickering advisers, heedless of worried way they watch her. Spirits, she might be really dying this time and she can’t even feel fear. Just irrational anger. The need to _hit something_. “Just…shut up until I get back, damn you all.”

_Are you coming back?_ No one asks this outright but the words form of their own accord and she can hear them, clearly, in each one of their voices. She leaves them to wonder, because she can’t answer with any sort of certainty. And they’ve done this sorrowful good before already. Years before.

Outside, her squad waits for her. Bull sits apart, so low to the ground that he has to look up at her when she approaches.

“It’s all you,” he says, sighing. He looks tired, his hair and beard frazzled and grimy from the fighting. He knows what the advisers think. “What do you want me to do? You know I’ll do whatever you tell me to.”

Kimani has not doubted him, not since they watched the dreadnoughts explode together on the Storm Coast. She has been angry with him, confused by him, but she has not doubted him.

It is not doubt that she feels now, just something else she doesn’t have a good grip on.

“Get up off your ass, Big’un,” she says wearily, carding her fingers once through his tangled hair. She can’t give him much else right now. He holds her gaze for a long breath, and nods.

 “We’re going after Viddasala,” she calls over her shoulder to the rest of them.

Nashan immediately shoots to her feet. “I’m coming.”

“The fuck you are,” Kimani shakes her head. “You stay here and keep contact open. If we’re losing, we need to let Cullen know beforehand.”

“That’s a shit excuse and you fucking _know it_ ,” Nashan hisses, shrugging Sera’s hand from her shoulder. “Give the fucking crystal to Cullen and take me with you. You’re down a man, anyway.”

“I’m down a _warrior_.” Kimani tries to be gentle, but her patience runs thin. “And you won’t make up for Cassandra even if I considered bringing you.”

“Fuck your excuses, I won’t stand here and wait. I won’t do it again. I won’t stay behind while-”

“- _Nashan_.” Galani looks as if he’s been hit in the stomach. “Please.”

The youngest Lia shakes her head, letting her tears fall. “I’ll come after you anyway. I’ll follow your trail. Or maybe I’m not so good at that, and I get lost in whatever the fuck is in those mirrors, and it’ll be your fault. So pick, _boss_.”

They don’t have time for this; Kimani wants to punch the wall, throw her cousin in a cell, catch fire for a heartbeat, but she does none of these things. They wouldn’t help.

“If you’re coming, haul ass,” she growls, and turns away.

…

 

Bull has never met the Viddasala. He has never met _any_ Viddasala. He remembers the time when a man held the rank, but he’d never seen him either. He knows that she outranks most everyone save the Ariqun, and he knows she’s hard as shit to kill. But he’s never seen the Viddasala before in his life.

And yet she looks at him like she knows him. Looks dead at him and turns his spine to ice.

She’s beautiful and frightening and wears her regalia like the armor it is. Her bodyguard is bigger than him. By a lot. Bull turns his maul over in his hands. Bout ten good hits to cut him down, and he thinks he can manage at least that much once they’re done with the soldiers between them and her.

Things are starting to make sense to Bull. Why he was contacted in the first place. It was a weak play on the Ben-Hassrath’s part but it was one better pursued than not, trying to break him down from the inside. Though, they hadn’t wanted to break him completely; if he went off before this invasion, it would have been premature. But if they could play him so that he’d fall apart _now_ , it’d at least help them a little. They wanted Kimani dead, and anyone overcome with grief, in the Qunari’s eyes and Bull’s, was easier to kill.

Bull is also pretty sure the agent of Fen’Harel is Solas, because that’d be perfect in the kind of way that happens more often than people realize. Mysterious hobo elf shows up, knows so _much_ about the Anchor. Once the Anchor’s usefulness is over, mysterious hobo elf disappears. Keeps tabs on the Anchor and the body that houses it. Befriends that body.

His only other guess would be Morrigan, but that’s just because of the Eluvians. She’d come too late and wasn’t interested enough in Kimani or her hand for it to have ever been truly feasible but shit, anything is possible at this point.

But with the frescoes and everything? Solas. Oh, yeah.

Kimani hasn’t put it together, mostly because she’s still in this silly spate of denial, but they both know of only one person who marks themselves with sign of a wolf. There is no other reason for the Qunari to think that the Inquisition works in tandem with a fake elf god. No other reason than Solas.

So, Bull knows all of that. He’s pretty sure about it. What he doesn’t know is what’s going to happen to his _kadan_.

Now, she’s cooking a soldier in his armor and shouting for Nashan. The kid’s fine, sticking close to Dorian as together they cast ghouls to haunt any qunari for years. Galani watches out for her as well, raining fire and ice down on the horde of _sten_. Galani has yet to show them his blood magic, but that’s a good sign. It means he doesn’t think that they need it just yet.

“I’m on your left, Chief!” Krem yells suddenly from Bull’s blindside. He hears the familiar growl of his lieutenant’s battle cry and feels at ease. Ahead of him, he sees Blackwall dodge the blood-slick blade of a heavy qunari sword.

Fighting qunari is different than fighting demons; even the big demons move in a way Bull has only ever seen at the rifts. But they cut them all down because they’re the dream team; the Inner Circle does great things and survives the after.

And they follow the Viddasala into the Darvaarad.

She looks at him again in the Darvaarad. She regards him like a figure from her past, long and drawn out and deciding that yes, he’s real. He’s there, in front of her. Her gaze shifts to Kimani, who is whispering something harshly into Nashan’s ear, and it sours.  And then the Viddasala asks him to help her.

_Vinek kathas. Now. **Please**._

His heard beats hard and he wants to say something sharp, shoot back something to stop her in her tracks. He’s _good_ at that. But he just stands there, incapable of even a _fuck off_.

Bull blanks for a second and he doesn’t know why. It doesn’t make sense. He knows he’s being played.

Whichever way he responds, he’s being played.

That still magic breaks when Kimani hurls a ball of ice at the Viddasala’s face and it hits her in the mouth with a sick _crack_. Everyone snaps into action to the tune of the priestess’s screaming, the Dream Team crashing like waves into the line of soldiers that rush them. Bull cuts a few down in a daze, trying to tap into his anger, the welcome rage that lights him like veilfire when it’s time to fight.

Nothing. That doesn’t stop him from lopping the head off of a _saarebas_ from behind while Dorian takes their _arvaarad_ whole in the mouth of a ghost. The green veins that pulse over Dorian’s bruise-purple conjure are from Kimani’s magic; she stands at a distance, maintaining her spell as Dorian leads their joint arcane dance. The _arvaarad_ is torn apart slowly from the inside while they die of fright.

Bull shivers as both necromancer and fade-mage exhale the same breath, their hands falling simultaneously. The paired magic that they do will never stop being weird to him no matter how many times they explain it.

“We have to deal with that dragon,” Kimani pants, knocking back a lyrium potion. “ _Of course_ Dragon’s Breath is an actual dragon. Who the fuck did I think we were dealing with?”

Galani passes a potion to Dorian and tosses one to Nashan who’s got that adrenaline-bright look in her eyes. Electricity still crackles at the head of her staff; she’s excited.

 Seeing this, Kimani softens for a minute, cupping her cousin’s cheek, before sighing.

 “I fucking hate dragons.” She looks at them all quickly, checking for injury. She’s bleeding a bit from her nose, pristine hair caked with blood and dust. The jewel on her face is covered in grime, but she doesn’t seem bothered by any of it. “But we’re going to let it free. Poor thing’s been treated like shit enough.”

She looks at Bull, now, from head to toe. “Are you alright?” She shakes off the previous battle and nods ahead, pulling her stave from its sheath on her back. Strong and sure; Bull nods even though he doesn’t really feel okay; if she’s okay, he’s okay. Least until this shit is over.

“Yeah, I’m good. Every drink in the bar is on me when we’re through, though. Ready to finish this?” he says, with as much mirth as he can muster.  
“I’m ready to beat that bitch’s ass.” Kimani doesn’t smile. She just leads them on. Dorian pats Bull on the arm as he walks past. _You know its the hand. You know she’s in pain._

Everyone knows what’s happening with her hand. No one believes she’s going to die, though. Except for her cousins, everyone here has seen the Fade scoop her up into its palm and set her back down again. They’d seen her rip Corypheus to shreds. They held on to impossible, possible hope.

Bull can’t think about her dying, whether he has hope or not.

Yeah. They really are going to need every drink in the bar when this is over.

 

And they’d had such a fucking _good_ morning.

…

 

The Anchor knocks Kimani off of her feet when they catch up to the Viddasala again. It’s probably a good thing, because Kimani is ready to fade-step through the wall of qunari warriors and catch their priestess bitch by the throat, and she isn’t fast enough to kill the Viddasala _and_ get away from the big bastard guarding her.

The Anchor hisses, whiting out the vision in her left eye, and she bites her lip bloody as she falls to her knees.

“Inquisitor, you have so little time left,” the Viddasala says. The Eluvian twists and warps behind her, promising no reflection and offering no view of the other side. But Kimani will follow her through a thousand of the same; her mind is not as quick as Bull’s but she can put pieces of a puzzle together. The Ben-Hassrath had been planning this for so long, trying to prime Bull for so long. Kimani would hear the priestess scream again before she kills her.

But then, the Viddasala puts a piece of the puzzle that Kimani had not seen into place.

Solas.

Solas is their fucking leak.

She wheezes, as if the wind has been knocked out of her.

Shit.

“Keep sharp,” she says to Nashan as her cousin helps her to her feet. “You don’t do what I do. You do what _they_ do, you understand?”

Because she’s going to do something stupid. Shit, is she ever, once she gets her hands on Solas.

“ _Ahat_ …” Nashan looks afraid, finally. Kimani kisses her on the forehead. Silly kid. Didn’t know what she was getting into.

“We keep moving, everyone. Still gotta kill her,” Kimani calls out, finally finding some laughter. It’s hoarse but it’s there, even as her head throbs. “And I’ll be damned if I let her kill Solas before I kick his traitor ass. So let’s get to it.”

It becomes as simple as that; Kill Viddasala, beat Solas. Figure out his angle, why he’s done what he’s done. And then, maybe kill him too.

_All this time, and **he’s** the lying spy._ Kimani shakes her head.

“ _Damiq simtum talamu,_ Kimani Patris,” Galani says softly. He hasn’t yet used his blood magic but he might; he’s bleeding from battle and they’re not yet finished, and he just might.

“Yeah. Let’s go,” she says to them, stepping up to the Eluvian and bracing herself for what will greet them on the other side. “Let’s go.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Saarebas- qunari mages  
> Arvaarad- Saarebas handlers  
> Sten- Soldiers  
> Antaam - The military branch of the Qunari  
> Vinek Kathas - A command: "seize them," or a derivative
> 
> Rivani:  
> Ahat - Sister  
> Damiq - Ok, or "Good."  
> Damiq Simtum Talamu - I wish good fate on you ("Good luck")


	24. The Devil and The Deep

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kimani confronts Solas, and she loses the Anchor and her hand. (Trespasser DLC)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just to be safe; there's no explicit gore, but I do talk a little about lots of blood and also rotting flesh.
> 
> The title comes from the song "The Devil and The Deep Blue Sea" By XYLØ.

There are three stretches of distance between Kimani and Solas.

At the start of the first stretch, the Anchor explodes just as she yells for her people to get back; it lifts her off of her feet and throws her into a shallow puddle of water at the foot a small, mossy hill. She hears bells and sees clear, blue sky. Birds, flying in flocks, split thin clouds into thinner mist.

 Bull reaches her first.

“Shit, shit, shit.” He sounds frightened, his voice tight. “Ah, shit. Get up, Fluff. Get up.” He lifts her under the arms, heedless of the way that the Anchor crackles green lightning around them both. When it shocks his skin he grunts and nothing more, refusing to let her go until she hits him in the chest.

“ _I’m ok._ ” She’d bruised her shoulder on some stone, and her thigh throbs, but she can walk and she can move her arms. “I’m good to keep going.”

“ _Kadan_ -”

“-That’s probably going to happen again, Big’un. I need you all to listen when I say to stay back. Love,” She says tersely, taking his chin in hand when he growls his frustration. Spirits, she feels sick. Like she’s going to be sick. “Hey.”

“I’m good,” He insists, gently pulling out of her grasp. “I’ve got your back.”

“I know. We’re losing ground again.”

Running feels odd. Like her head is detached from the rest of her body and she doesn’t have feet. But she doesn’t fall again, and she raises a wall of fire beneath a pair of qunari soldiers. They burn as she steps through the next Eluvian.

 

In the second stretch, she sees the Viddasala far ahead and fade-steps with her next cursing breath. The terrain blurs and she’s nearly there. Spirits, she’s nearly on the priestess’s heels when the Anchor knocks her back. This time, she falls into Blackwall. This time, her vision goes black for a few seconds, and she has no choice but to let him hold her. Her arm feels like fire, like her skin’s been sloughed off and her veins are embers. The Well of Sorrows is silent. No more chant of _Dread Wolf_.

Useless piece of shit. But then, it couldn’t have known. Could it?

Dorian puts a lyrium potion to her lips and she chokes it down. She touches her face and finds her _mulki_ missing, her nose swollen. She must look a mess.

“We have to keep going,” She coughs, shaking off Blackwall only to fall against Krem. Grim, grim Krem, who holds her tight. “Fuck, this is a race and we’re already behind. We have to keep going.”

Her legs still work, and so do her eyes, never mind that a black spot chases the vision in her left. It’s just that her head pounds and her neck aches. But she can keep moving.

 

There is a _saarebas_ larger than Bull through the third Eluvian. He’s a giant, and his magic crackles around him like lightning through a storm cloud.

Kimani feels his magic and shivers. It has no direction, no flow or rhythm, it’s just…angry. It feels angry, and Kimani can understand that. She can’t suffer it to thrive, but she can understand it.

_You poor wretch._

Its pitiful existence won’t stop him from killing each and every one of them, so Kimani thinks these things as she slings spells at him, seeing what sticks.

Not much. Not much sticks, but lightning seems to still him long enough to take hits from Bull, Blackwall, and Krem.

And then Galani calls on his blood magic, an explosion of crimson. That seems to frighten the _saarebas_ a great deal; he can understand fire and ice and lightning well enough, even the Fade magic Kimani dares to use despite her crackling hand, but he doesn’t understand blood magic at all.

And Galani is ferociously poised, moving and bending with his magic until the bloody _saarebas_ is coerced down onto one knee, struggling. Nashan and Dorian move in with their ghouls to throw the _saarebas_ further off its square.

It dies slowly by nature of its size and the way its magic fights against them with a will of its own. Unfettered. Pure, in a strange way; Kimani watches him die in wonder. She’s never seen anything quite like him. She’s never seen magic quite like the magic that any _saarebas_ wields. And she watches that magic die, allows herself the seconds to watch the wildfire snuff out beneath an onslaught of spellcast blood and the ghosts of dead things, come to collect a new brother.

And then the Anchor explodes without warning, tossing her like a rock.

This one hurts deep in her chest, a heat that blossoms and rolls through her and has her screaming. Impact knocks the wind from her lungs and she scrambles for air, clawing at her chest.

_Not yet. Shit, get up._

She hears Bull shout, hears Blackwall and Nashan. Then she doesn’t hear anyone until she can catch her breath again, crying out as she turns into one throbbing spot of pain.

“Is everyone alright? Is-” Kimani sits up and sees the scattered parts of the _saarebas_ strewn amongst the still bodies of her people. Knocked unconscious, she realizes as they stir. Not dead.

“ _Kadan_.”

“Thank fuck.” Kimani scrambles to Bull’s side and kisses his bloody mouth. “Come on, you’re ok. Get up.” She tugs at his hand, wavering off balance.

“Yeah, I’m out of commission for at _least_ three minutes,” he chuckles. “But you keep going. By my count, we’ve killed most everyone _but_ the Viddasala. And she’s not interested in you anymore. Just Solas.”

“Bull-”

“-Just blow her up if she tries any funny shit. Listen, I can’t help you. Maybe Solas can. But he can’t if he’s dead. So go. I’ll gather these miscreants in…two minutes, now.”

Kimani looks up and sees the rest of her people writhing where they lay on the ground; Krem lets out a string of Tevene curses Kimani has never heard, not even from Dorian. Dorian laughs, then groans with a wave of pain.

 _Shit_. She kisses Bull again, taps him on the chest for being right, and pulls herself to her feet. She spits blood and bile into the grass, and grits herself against the ringing pain that splits her head.

 One foot after the other, until she slips through the Eluvian like a wisp through Fade.

…

Bull wipes his eye but not his mouth. He turns his head and sees Nashan staring at him. Glaring at him for letting Kimani go on alone. Her breath comes sharp and heavy, and Bull thinks that she’s in shock because there’s something really wrong with her arm that should have her making a lot more noise. But she just glares at him.

 He doesn’t know what to tell the kid, really. He doesn’t know what to think himself.

…

 

The Viddasala is a block of stone, and Solas thrums with the Fade’s energy. His voice sounds like five voices and he looks taller, somehow, even before Kimani falls to her knees. The Anchor pulses harder around him, somehow. She feels compelled to him in a way that is magic.

Because he’s something else. He is magic. Something else: Fen’Harel, Dread Wolf.

Kimani looks at his hands and tries to imagine them creating the Veil.

She looks down at her hand; tears fall into the void and disappear. She spits against a stone as he explains himself. He is so _vast_ and she feels like a mite of dust floating on an uncontrollable wind.

“You could have warned me,” she says, her harsh laugh choked off into a sob. “You could have made this so much easier.”

Solas watches her with a strange expression, his eyes backlit with magic, as she climbs back to her feet; her hand has gone silent with a wave of his own.

The magic is his, and so he gives them time.

Time slows, now. Each breath is a year long as she watches Solas glow in front of her.

“It would not have been easier, young one,” he says softly, standing over her like the god he claims to have never been. “You have not even made _this_ easy. You have fought me every step of the way; do you really think it would be any different if you knew the truth before now?” He takes her chin in hand. Kimani doesn’t see the point in pulling away from him; she doesn’t see the point at all. “My dear Inquisitor. How I’ve missed your strength so close. Don’t lose it now.”

“ _Years_ , Solas-”

“I know, my friend. I am sorry. But I needed time, and you are far too persistent.” He gives her a knowing, chastising look. His thumb smears the dampness on her cheek.

Kimani grimaces. “You sabotaged me. And then you sabotaged Bull. Did you really think I would leave that alone?” 

“Perhaps I underestimated your love for the qunari.”

“And the demon of his nightmare…that was your doing?”

“Yes.”

“And the B _en-Hassrath_ -”

“No, _they_ were simply an added bonus, to be frank. They sought The Iron Bull out all on their own. But, the seeds of doubt they planted in him were more than enough for my purpos-”

Kimani slaps him before she can register the movement, growling with the effort. Her palm stings and her handprint reddens his face. When he only stands, watching her curiously, she slaps him again.

“Fuck you.”

“I will not let you hit me a third time, young one.” The warning is so quiet that Kimani stays her hand, balled into a fist.

“Thank you. Please believe that it is not my intent to kill you.”

“Not yet.”

“Please.” Solas frowns. “I don’t take joy in what I must do.”

“But you’ll do it all the same.” Kimani still reels from the sheer weight of everything he’s told her. She has already saved the world from destruction; _he’d helped her_ , for shit’s sake. And now he seeks to undo it.

It’s as if the last four were for nothing: everything she’s done, everything between her and a life left in the Circle, for nothing.

She is a pawn, a puppet playing on strings at the elbows and knees.

“Do you remember Adamant, Inquisitor?” Solas asks, ducking his head to find her lowered gaze.

“Of course I do. I remember you there. As if you were its friend.”

“I was fascinated,” he agrees, nodding fondly. “And _invigorated_. And surprised that we could all simply fall into it as though it were a crack in the earth.  The way the Fade took to you was amazing.”

“Considering I’m little better than Tranquil to you,” Kimani mutters, “I’m sure it did seem like quite the feat.”

Solas ignores her. “You did well then, young one. And you’ve done well since. You have…changed my mind about many things, and I will always cherish it.”

He speaks like a victor simply waiting for his prize, and it shakes Kimani to her core. She was stupid to have ever trusted him at all. Spirits, she was an idiot. She’d befriended the villain, let the villain into her head.

“You don’t have to do any of this,” she sighs, crying. “You don’t _have_ to do anything.”

“I would welcome the chance to be proven wrong once again, young one. But, regardless of my care for you, I will not give you the tools to undo me. Because I have no doubt that you would tear me down.”

“I will,” she promises, though there is little conviction in her spirit. “I’ll tear you apart with my fucking teeth.”

And he just smiles that pitiful smile at her. “Your vigor has always made you beautiful. Now, give me your hand.”

Kimani would have had the mark for five years come winter. Some days she could almost forget that it was there. Not recently, not with the cramping, but before. Some days she could forget until she unwrapped her palm and saw the endless void for herself. She could feel it- feel the Fade better, somehow- when she cast magic. She had thought that the Anchor would be with her until she died, a relic from the time she’d saved the fucking world.

And Solas takes it away so simply: A stroke of his fingers over her voided palm.

“Enjoy the time that you have left, Kimani. Focus on your crumbling Inquisition. Focus on living for what is left of this world. I will not see you again.” Solas turns from her, walking to the Eluvian set up high on the hill in front of them. Where her hand has glowed green for years, it now degrades to black. The lines that shoot up her arm like corrupted veins turn black and decay.

No. No, that can’t be it.

“Solas.” Kimani lunges forward in a burst of rage and hits an invisible barrier that springs up without warning, and she falls to the ground. Wheezing in agony, she scrambles to her feet.

“ _Solas_.” She runs ahead again and is met with another barrier, screaming when electricity courses through her from the impact. But she does not forget her feet.

“Solas!” Furious, she charges, ready for this third impact, but not ready for the way it knocks her back, like an explosion, until the stone Viddasala breaks her fall.

 

When she regains her bearings, breath shallow and shaking from the pain of her injuries, Solas is gone.

When she looks down at her marked hand, so are the tips of her fingers.

…

 

Iron Bull is really glad that no one is dead. Krem breaks his nose and Nashan breaks her arm, but Galani only sprains a wrist and Dorian and Blackwall seem fine. Bull himself hit his head pretty hard, but his head is pretty hard so the ringing in his ears should stop eventually. He feels like shit, but he’s fine.

The giant fucking _saarebas_ isn’t. Damned thing’s in pieces. Its mask is covered in gore, but the head’s missing. Talk about an explosion.

It’d be cool if it hadn’t come from Kimani’s hand.

“Where is she?” Galani asks. His braids are tied in a grimy knot, his clothes look like a bloody bruise of fabric. His eyes are bloodshot and his hands are blood-stained. Weird thing about blood mages is that you don’t know which blood belongs to them, and which doesn’t. Naturally, it doesn’t seem to bother the man at all. “Where is Kimani?”

Bull nods to the Eluvian. “We go together,” He calls after Galani when he immediately begins stalking towards it. Shit, he and Kimani are _so_ related. “You fucked your wrist up.”

“I can heal a fucking wrist, Iron Bull. But she cannot fight.” Galani points to Nashan, who seems to be angry at her own arm for breaking now that she’s done being angry and Bull. She glowers at it, refusing to meet anyone’s eye. “And so, she will _not_ be going through the Eluvian. And _I_ am going to drain whomever I meet when I walk through the fucking mirror. Like a cattle for meat. So perhaps we all should _not_ go together.”

Bull can feel the heat waft off of him, and believes that Galani would do it. He has seen blood magic a couple of times but _this_ man is no frightened apostate slinging spells in desperation. Galani is a veteran. And he’s angry.

It definitely runs in the family; before Nashan had gone and hurt herself, he’d seen that same dangerous glint in her eye as well. Lia clan traits. Even the bastards and outcasts get the mean streak.

“Alright, fine. Krem, stay here with the kid,” Bull says. “I’m not letting the mage, no matter how fucking freaky, go on his own. Blackwall, you’re coming. Dorian…stay behind. We’ll bring her back.”

No one argues; everyone is worried. Bull takes Galani because blood magic is fucking sick but also, Solas doesn’t know Galani’s magic at all. He takes Blackwall for the extra muscle.

He honestly has no clue what to expect on the other side of the Eluvian, but he knows what he’d like to see: dead Viddasala, dead Solas or, at least a thoroughly beaten Solas. A living Kimani, her hand done with hurting her so they could get back to this damned Exalted Council, then go _home_.

Bull would never in a thousand Ages think to see Kimani sitting with her back to a giant, stone statue _of_ the Viddasala, cradling her left arm encased in what looks like one of her protection spells. Rocking in pain. Crying.

On closer inspection, everyone curses: her hand is _gone_ , the skin veined in poisonous black instead of the green light to which they were all accustomed. A rot; her arm is rotting away, bone and all.

Kimani shakes from shock and pain, groaning with it, her ashen face slick with tears as she concentrates her magic around the arm. She is quarantining the rot. It stops just midway up her forearm.

_Fuck._

“Spirits,” Galani whispers, scrambling to his knees in front of her. “Kimani. Kimani Patris, _look at me_.”

It takes her a while to realize that they’re there: Pain haze. Bull knows it by the way her eyes roll before she focuses.

He puts an arm in front of Blackwall when he tries to go to her. _Wait._

“You have to cut it off.” Kimani’s voice is leaden and dead, but her words are sure. She lets Galani kiss her forehead, and looks through Bull and Blackwall. Right through them, like mist. Fuck, she’s so pale. “I can’t keep this up, and it’s gonna keep going. Keep…keep eating me up. What if it doesn’t stop? You have to cut it off. Right now, I can’t wait. Right now.”

 _Yeah,_ Bull thinks, _that’s the logical next step._ His chest feels like a boulder sits on top of it, but he breathes through it. If she can be rational, so can he. _Questions come later. Deal with the task at hand. Do your job._

Both Bull and Blackwall have seen and done amputations in the field. It’s shitty work that shouldn’t be done, and if her arm wasn’t already so far gone he’d fight to get her back to Val Royeaux where the healers were. But he doesn’t want to know just how much of that magic would eat away at her and now, they can stop the rot at a good place. Considering.

“Don’t just look at me,” Kimani snaps, shaking her head at their silence. “Cut it off, cut it off, cut it the fuck _off_. It’s gone, it’s dead. He took it. He took it from me. Please,” she cries, leaning forward into Galani’s shoulder. “It’s ok. Just do it. Right now. Just do it.”

“Wait.” Galani lifts her head, wiping away tears. “Let me see if I can hold it for you. If Dorian and I can maintain the protection for long enough. Just…”

“Galani, we are so far away…”

“It is a better chance for you, if we can do this. Drop your barrier, little cousin.”

Kimani focuses in on him before she nods, obeying with a whimper. Immediately, Galani casts his own protection spell to enclose her arm.

 The rot, a bubbling shadow that simply takes away her flesh, her bone, begins eating away at her.

Blackwall hisses, cursing the Maker. Bull agrees.

“Not working,” Kimani says through gritted teeth. She tries not to scream and it comes out in whining peals instead. “Not working, not-”

“-okay.” Galani falls back, watching Kimani return her protections. “I’m sorry, _ahatki_.”

Bull swallows the lump in his throat, or tries to. They are far beyond jokes now when he swears to himself that he’s going to kill Solas.

But for now, Kimani is finally looking at him. Her eyes are desperate. She’s asking him, just like he’d asked her. _Help me._

 “Okay, _kadan_. We’re gonna do it right now. Just let us take care of you, okay?” Bull turns to Blackwall, but the man’s already got a knife out. Bull unhooks the small axe he keeps in his belt. He hasn’t used it, but Galani would still have to sanitize it with fire.

They lay her out at the feet of the statues and she looks up at the sky, sobbing quietly. Galani strokes her hair, his other hand pressed firmly against her chest. Bull immediately feels the twist of magic in the air; after a moment Kimani is calmer, her eyes less focused and glassy, her protective spell fading away as slowly as she breathes. Galani rubs her scalp the way she often does for herself, humming.

 Bull absolutely does not want to know what he’s done. He trusts Galani to protect Kimani, and that is more than enough. The blood mage murmurs something low, too low for Bull to hear, before nodding at them.

“Go ahead and do it,” He says grimly. “And hurry up. The corruption is creeping.”

…

 

Kimani is somewhere deep when they cut off her arm. She thinks that it is blood magic that pulls her low, but she can’t think too hard; she sees Galani’s dirty face smiling down at her and she can’t look away. He strokes her hair, sinks his fingers down to the scalp, and it is so nice. So nice.

Galani can be very sweet. Very sweet man, doing this for her.

She suddenly smells hot metal.

People are moving around her: Bull and Thom. That’s good. They know what to do, how to cut things so that it’s okay afterward. Both of them had done more cutting than Kimani will ever do. That’s good.

Kimani tries to smile back at Galani, and her face feels too heavy. But he keeps smiling at her. So nice.

They’re cutting off her arm, but she feels so _nice_. And she can’t see a thing but her smiling cousin. She’s glad that he is here.

She knows that the deed is done when he kisses her forehead again, and it takes him a very long time to pull away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, but we knew it had to go down. *Pours one out for the Fakest Friends in Thedas* *also pours one out for Kimani's arm*  
> We're almost done, y'all.  
> Two chapters left.


	25. The Givers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kimani decides to wake up. Skyhold is dismantled. Bull moves her along. Stories start again.

_About time I found you. What are you doing outside of the mellamu?_

Kimani has been sleeping for a long time. She knows that much. And she knows that she isn’t dead, because dreaming feels the same.

Ah, that’s a lie; dreaming feels a little stiff. It takes her a while - who knows how time truly works in the Fade? - to realize that it was the Anchor. It had made things easier. She hadn’t even realized. Now she feels diminished.

So she leaves her mother’s protective barrier and roams. Gotta get re-acquainted.

Eventually, though, Asha shows up at her side as if she’d always been there, and Kimani sort of expects her to.

 _Hi mama._ Kimani keeps walking through this shadow of the Hinterlands. She knows that they aren’t yet at Skyhold in the waking world; they’re still in Val Royeux. She remembers that much, that they carried her back through so many Eluvians until they returned to the city. Everything else is blurry.

 But she misses the Hinterlands, and figures walking here is better than walking most anywhere else. The wide, open space, even if just a figment, makes her feel good.

 _You must have gotten to Galani,_ Kimani prompts Asha when her mother falls silent.

_Of course. Not to mention, news travels. Did you think I wouldn’t keep up with your movements?_

_I guess I wasn’t thinking about it. But you’re here, now._

_Yes my dear. Galani thought you might visit him and he could give you news, but you have not._

_…No._

_You must know that he wouldn’t object to a visit from you._

_There’s no need to visit him._ Kimani looks ahead at the rolling, warping hills.

 _My daughter…you cannot plan to lose yourself here._ Asha takes her by the arm and they face each other. She looks well, mostly just hair and simple dress, her eyes worried. _You have to wake up._

Kimani smiles gently. She feels so calm. The Fade is still so calming. _Did he send you to tell me this?_

_Yes. And also to tell you that you’ve been sleeping for four days. That you’re fine. No fever. Only that you won’t wake up. And that Iron Bull is very afraid because of it, along with the rest of your friends._

She hasn’t thought about Bull in what feels like a long time; every time she does, she can only hear that bitch of a priestess’s voice calling to him and it makes her angry and sad in ways that would bring demons to swarm her if she indulged herself.

_It’s so peaceful here, mama. If I wake up, it won’t be peaceful. It’s going to be pain, and anger, and sadness, and loss. I’ve lost my arm._

_Yes._ Asha nods. _I know. And you must wake up all the same._

_I’m tired._

_I know, my love. I know. And I am sorry. But you must._

_No. Kimani_ cocks her head at her mother. _Have you come to make me?_

She does not want to wake up. She knows that she _must_ , understands her responsibility, but dreaming has always been the easier endeavor.

_Kimani Patris, you will not waste away here. Inquisitor Trevelyan, who saved the world. Who saved Thedas yet again. Who is fearless and powerful. Will you simply die?_

She thinks about what Solas has told her. About his spies and his lies and his plans. About the Anchor, and the Veil. And time.

Her left hand tightens at the thought. In the Fade, she still has her arm. It hasn’t been eaten away, and she still has it.

Kimani covers her face with both hands, and cries. It isn’t wise to have so much emotion in the Fade, but she doesn’t care; fighting a horde of demons would still be easier than waking up.

 Asha hushes her, holds her, until her sobs fall away and she wipes the tears from her eyes. She can’t even cry properly. Just for a moment.

She has given so much to a cause that was a trick. Nothing but a trick to bolster Solas. Fen’Harel. Dread Wolf.

No: Solas. He’ll always be Solas to her, until she takes his life.

She still has to take his life.

“Go away, mama.” Kimani says this aloud, and as gently as she can. “The next time I see you will be in the waking world; I promised you that. But leave me be, now.”

Asha hesitates for a moment before nodding silently, stepping away from her.

“I love you.” Asha’s voice a warm slip of breeze. “So much.”

“I know.”

Her mother disappears.

Kimani can be stubborn; she wanders for a while longer, until it feels as if Asha’s appearance was merely a dream within a dream. She leaves her incarnation of the Hinterlands and goes somewhere else with less distinction. She creeps past some fairly docile demons, and fights a few not-so-docile ones. She’s a bit happier after that. A few spirits appear in her path, hovering close. But they are just Curiosity. Harmless.

_You seem familiar._

“My name is Kimani.”

_We never remember names. Only feelings. You seem familiar. But changed._

“Well, that’s probably because I _am_ changed.”

_We think that we want to know you more. We will follow, for a time._

_“_ Go ahead. _”_

The company is nice. Curiosity is always surprisingly quiet.

Kimani roams until the decision to return to the waking world feels like once she’s made on her own. A decision made just because she feels like it, no matter how much of a shit lie that is.

When she does wake up, it’s too bright; fuck her, it’s the middle of the damned day and the sun shines in her eyes until she turns her heavy head away.

_Fucking sun._

It takes a minute to get her limbs to cooperate, and she realizes that they’ve propped her up on many pillows. Groggy, she rubs her eyes in slow motion and coughs hard. She has to pee really badly.

“Hey.”

Bull sits in an armchair on the other side of the tiny room, and it’s a wonder that he fits. Next to him on a stand is a tray of food that looks only half-eaten. It looks good; her stomach rumbles.

“Hey, Big’un,” Kimani rasps, smiling and sliding out of bed. Her legs feel like lead. “I really need to pee.”

She expects him to smile back, maybe laugh at her comment. But she doesn’t expect to see him cry.

 

…

 

There isn’t enough propriety in the world to save the Exalted Council from Kimani’s disrespect. Not enough magic the world to shield them.

She curses them before she even begins her speech, damns them all to the blighted Void, and they reel back in disgust.

“My life has been offered up to save the lot of yours twice over, now. _My_ life.” She begins this way, her voice dangerous and low. The Council has not seen her since the amputation, and she stands tall with the left sleeve of her uniform coat hemmed to, letting them stare. “Years of my life I have given you. You, who wouldn’t think twice to throw me back into a Circle Tower if not for the Anchor I once bore. All of you.” She looks at each of them, ending her gaze on Divine Victoria, where it falters to see Vivienne’s face soft: nearly an expression of sadness. Nearly.

“And now, the Anchor is gone. And there is another threat lurking between the realms of our world. And you sit and bicker about my military. About my intentions, as if I have not proven myself to you twice over. You speak of my supposed lust for power when the Inquisition has only grown smaller since I defeated Corypheus. Damn the lot of you. Shame on all of you. _Fuck_ all of you.”

Kimani stalks this way and that as she speaks, her whole arm tucked behind her back. Now, she reveals the book of the Inquisition, brandishing it at them.

“You know what this is. And you know what this means, and you disrespect it and us. We have saved your lives, worthless as they are. We have saved your _lives_. And now, we are finished.”

She throws the book down. “I pray that you don’t tear each other apart before the bigger threat does. I pray that when the time comes, you understand what is important, and what’s at stake. But I know that my prayers ring in hollow heads because you are greedy. It will threaten to swallow you whole before the end. And then, you will wonder where we’ve been.’

There is no sound but the thud of Kimani’s boots as she leaves the hall. No one says a word.

 

…

 

Bull takes Kimani home, first to Skyhold. Josephine tries to send her away, directly to Ostwick or wherever they might go (Ostwick), saying that she and the others will take care of everything. But Kimani stays, and so Bull stays and helps dismantle things. Once she’s satisfied there, once all of her paperwork is finished and her workers paid and Herald’s Rest closes down, she says goodbye to her friends. Tells them that they should send word to her mother’s villa in Ostwick if they want to find her. That she will miss them, but she is certain to see them again.

There are a lot of tears, but Bull has already shed his. He comes close again when Sera cries, however. But she’s Red Jenny; she’ll always be able to find them.

Dagna promises to visit Ostwick before the year is out. She is making something for Kimani, and she will deliver it personally once it’s finished. She also gives Kimani a small trunk full of runes and half a dozen staves. For something to do, he guesses. Maybe a hobby.

“Make it a teaching moment, get the Iron Bull to help you,” Dagna says, giggling at him.

Before they leave for Ostwick, The Bull’s Chargers have a number of jobs to last them a season, a season and a half, scattered across Orlais. Bull gives Krem the paperwork, and _Krem_ almost cries.

They’ve gotta stop all of this; everybody’s gotta chill out. No one is leaving forever.

“Work your way back to the Marches once you’re done,” he tells Krem. “And send me updates. Keep me posted. I’ll be back, eventually. Maybe we’ll do a stint up north. We’ve got a connect in Antiva now, anyway.”

Kimani had told him to go with the Chargers, one morning on the brink of tears as she wiggled her stump; she could make it to Ostwick, have some of the soldiers headed that way escort her to Highever at least. He could meet her there in spring, not like she was going anywhere. Bull had nearly cursed her; that’s not how this was going to work. That’s not how it will ever work so long as he wears his dragon’s tooth and she wears hers. Mama Lia is just going to have to make room for him until he finds them a place to be.

This had made her laugh, so he thinks they’ll be okay. They haven’t spoken about Val Royeaux much, but he believes that they will. He only really knows what she’d told her advisers about Solas. But he is patient and she needs to heal. He helps her make _nesomni_ before their trip north. Bricks and bricks of it; she doesn’t want to dream and it scares him to think of why.

“Magic seems to go one of two ways with trauma,” Dorian had said through the sending crystal. He’d been surprised when Bull was on the other end, but no less eager to talk. “Some consume themselves with it. Some step back from it for a while. There is plenty on the subject; I’ll send some literature along if you wish.”

“Thanks, ‘Vint. Now that we’re done catching up, I’ve got someone else that’d like to speak to you,” Bull had said as he passed the sending crystal to Galani. It was the least he could do until Dorian got it through his rock head and sent his damned boyfriend a damned crystal.

When he told Kimani of his good deed ( _not_ of his impending studies), she’d smiled one of the bigger smiles that he’ll see from her this spring.

When the two of them finally leave, she looks back at Skyhold often as they descend the Frostbacks.

“It was my home. First real home that I made myself. With help, but it was mine,” Kimani says. “I’m going to miss it.”

“We’ll make another home,” Bull says, tightening his hold around her waist as they ride. “Maybe one a little smaller, though.”

They don’t take much with them, just essentials and a few gifts and trinkets; Kimani gives most of her things away. Bull never had much to begin with.

 Kost follows behind on a rope, honking every now and then to remind them that he is, indeed, there.  Every time, it makes her giggle. Eventually, even Bull smiles at the noisy animal. After all, it’s his fault that they have the thing in the first place.

Bull makes sure that they take their time traveling, and has them detour through the Hinterlands. .

 Many nights, Kimani cries and doesn’t give a reason; sometimes she allows Bull to hold her, but most times she doesn’t want to be touched. They’ve tried having sex once since she lost the arm, in Skyhold, and it hadn’t gone very well. She’d been in tears and embarrassed and trying to apologize, and Bull had to calm her down before suggesting they steal into the kitchens to make cocoa.

 _Chocolate’s a pretty good alternative, and **almost** as tasty_ , he’d said, with a goofy grin, to make her laugh.

Bull remembers trying to adjust to his one eye. It takes time.

“Praying?” Bull asks one night when the sky seems crowded with stars and Kimani moves quietly in the dark, dancing. She’s careful not to lose balance; whenever she has thus far, it puts her in a mood for days. But this dance is very grounded. Bull remembers her doing the same thing with an injured leg, years ago.

“Trying to.” She stamps her feet to the rhythm he can hear in his head, and he doesn’t say anything else.

Sometimes she sleeps through the day, and Bull simply ties her to him as they ride. Ties a nice little bow on her stomach, and talks shit to Kost until she wakes up.

Right before they veer back onto the Imperial Highway, Kimani spends an afternoon simply roaming the stretch of hillside near their camp. Bull spends it re-organizing their things, though not much needs fixing since he’s the only one handling anything. Still, he likes seeing everything, noting everything, packing and re-packing.

“I can help more,” she says quietly when they eat dinner. A homestead in the hills had brought them food once they realized just who was traipsing around in their backyard. It was good stew, and they’d even been given dried jerky for the road. Good people, this farmer, and a fan of the Inquisitor. _You’re so much prettier than your likeness. And taller._

“You’re just fine, _kadan,_ ” Bull says gently. In truth, he’s been enjoying the quiet almost as much as she has. And his hands are busy, he’s busy watching out for the both of them, and it gives him good, old structure. Leeway to think.

The Qunari are now focused back on Tevinter, and Bull hasn’t so much as felt an agent around since Val Royeux. Not that it’s much consolation when he hadn’t even known about the spies in Skyhold. Something was changed, even if momentarily, in the Ben-Hassrath, because of him. They’d had to switch things up for their invasion-assassination because of him. Out in the field, out here, though, he should be able to see them better.

But they shouldn’t bother Kimani anymore. The new Viddasala will not see her as a threat, and Bull has exceeded his usefulness.

  _Nice._

He doesn’t realize that he’s strayed off in thought, but when he comes back Kimani is sitting close to him. Her arm is around his middle like a hug, and she kisses his chest. She lifts her chin for another kiss, and he gives it readily. Simple and sweet. Bull presses another to her lips and it catches; he pulls her close, breathing her in. She smells like grass and sweat, and it’s nice.

“I miss you,” she says when they come up for breath. Her heart is beating hard, but she’s hesitant. “And I’m sorry.”

Bull butts their foreheads together, sighing. “ _You’re_ _just fine_ , _kadan_ ,” he repeats. “I’m right here.”

When they sleep, she does so tucked against him. Her stump is doing as well as it has since the healers got hold of it in Val Royeaux, though it pains her. All of her other injuries are well healed, though she complains of colored spots in her left eye sometimes. And her ears, she says, ring for no reason occasionally. And she’s re-aggravated a leg injury she’d sustained years ago, so her shin bothers her a lot. She jokes that they’re starting to match a little, their left sides going funny.

That’s what she calls it. Her arm just went a little funny. Don’t touch it. Let it be funny.

So he does. And they travel on, stopping for a couple of days in Highever. When they have a proper room, she asks him to cut her hair.

“I can do it for you, braid it for you,” he offers, in case she’s only worried about upkeep, but she shakes her head.

“It’s time for the hair to go again. Remember how short it was when we met?”

Bull does. He’s going to miss the fluff, but he sharpens a pair of shears against a leather strip. “Say no more.”

Cutting her hair is like snowfall. Kimani gathers it all up and throws it into the brazier, and Bull spends the night rubbing her newly-cropped cut until she takes his hand and puts it between her legs.

They don’t get very far, but it is progress on a few levels.

Eventually, they find a boat and start the short ride over to the Free Marches.

Bull has a couple of reports from Krem by then and he spends the time reading them. They boys are doing fine, Krem says, ran into a bit of trouble out in the Western Approach, but it’s the Western Approach: if you _don’t_ run into trouble, were you ever really there? Bull chuckles at that, but he knows full well Krem at least enjoyed his time in the Wastes. Harding had been out there, last he knew, working to dismantle the last Inquisition camps in that desert. She still works for Leliana but the Nightingale is in Orlais, working with Vivienne. So Harding, who had _better_ be Leliana’s successor, would never be too far away.

 _Expect correspondence_ , was how Leliana had said goodbye to Bull. It was kind of sweet. They were almost neutral associates.

Kimani sleeps in his lap during the boat ride because the rocking throws her off-balance and she doesn’t like it. It’s nice, her all curled up against him, but a little sad; she’s lost weight and she looks small. Bull tries not to worry too much, because Asha is sure to get her healthy again. Especially with all that damned good food. Mmm.

Once the boat docks and the town square is in sight, Kimani seems to perk up a little. They get their things and their mounts and move through the city with a bit of vigor, stopping for some expensive, rich food in the nicer inn just because and taking the long way ‘round to the path into the northern estates. Bull thinks they’re going to spend a lot of time in these woods, lush and green and endless on either side of this little, intimate road. He thinks he’ll look for a place around here, if possible. Kimani and Asha have a strange and rocky relationship, one that he isn’t sure he understands or really likes, considering, but he thinks that Kimani will like being near to her. At least this way, getting to the _ta-gibil_ won’t be bothersome. Bull is ready for some more of those tasty melon fruits. And he knows he’ll like to come back from jobs to a place that looks like a damned fairy tale wood.

Before long, Asha’s cast-iron gate appears. Bull ties their mounts to the post for Osher to retrieve, and turns to cross the path. He’s more than ready for a comfortable seat and a plate and the chatter that the Lia family brings.

“Wait.” Kimani tugs at his hand. “Wait a second, Big’un.”

“Yeah?” Bull lets her weave their fingers together, callouses against callouses. “What’s on your mind?”

“I want to thank you.” She ducks her head, shrugging. “For everything.”

Oh no, nuh-uh, none of this shit. “Kimani-”

“-No, let me speak. I know you think that it’s ok, that I don’t need to thank you because you’d do it all again in a heartbeat, every time. Because I’m your _kadan_. But _I_ need to thank you. I have been quiet, but I have not been easy. And you have let me be quiet, but it can’t have been easy on you.”

“I’m different. I’m so different; everything feels different and I don’t know if or when I will return to normal because normal is different; I don’t have the Anchor or…or my arm, I don’t have Skyhold. I’m not the Inquisitor. The last time that I was simply Kimani, I was an apostate who saw the world through a haze of blood-lotus smoke. And before that, I was in the Circle. So I don’t know what’s going to happen.”

Bull shakes his head, pulling her to him. “Hey, that’s alright-”

“-I’m not finished.” She smiles a little, but her eyes are shining and she clutches his hand. “You don’t know…a lot. About what has happened to me. And you’ve taken all of this- me -in stride. Even though out of anyone, the Qunari affected _you_ the most. The Viddasala…I saw it. I’m not blind. And I saw what it did to you. That’s why I busted her in the mouth.”

And _that_ had been excellent; Bull chuckles. He’d never gotten to laugh at the fact that she’d chucked a ball of ice at the Viddasala. She hadn’t wanted to kill her right then, just wanted to hurt her. It was cruel and yet it tickled him pink. That was _quality_.

“But, what I’m saying,” Kimani goes on, smiling more, now that he does, “Is that you are the best person, the bravest person I know. The biggest heart and the sharpest mind and the purest…everything. I don’t care about what you’ve done, you know I trust you. And I love you. I love you so _much_.” Her voice breaks, and she laughs at herself. “You’ve fucking bewitched me. The mage.”

Ah, shit. Bull feels his chest get tight, but he keeps quiet. He rubs his thumb over the back of her hand, and listens.

“I don’t…know how long we’ll be together. I want you for as long as I can have you, but the world is strange and forever is a strange idea. But you’ve carried me back here. All by yourself. You let your boys go to Orlais and you’ve taken care of me since I woke up in Val Royeaux. And you carried me back. And I just want you to know that whatever happens to us after this, you are the most beautiful person I know and I’ll take care of _you_ no matter what. I…”

Kimani breaks off, squeezing her eyes shut. Her stump twitches when she tries to use the arm to wipe her face and she jolts when Bull does it for her, but doesn’t pull away.

This woman. He’s undone, all because of her.

“ _Taashath, kadan_ ,” Bull coos, hunkering down on his good knee to meet her eye. “You beautiful, terrifying thing. You and your pretty words and your strength. I’m here for as long as you’ll have me. I’m here for good. You don’t need to talk like I’m going to drop you off at your mom’s and keep moving.” He cups her cheek, thumbing tears away. His other arm snakes around her waist. His heart is fucking _full_.

“You’re different? Shit, I’ve _been_ different, and here you are. Waiting and waiting for me. _You threw ice at the Viddasala._ You broke her teeth _.”_ He grins. “That was badass.”

“Well, the bitch deserved it,” Kimani shrugs, sniffling as she laughs.

Bull beams. “Damn right she did. You know, you don’t have to be Inquisitor to be who you are or who I love, and you’ll see that. We’ll see it together. Let me kiss you?” He asks, and she nods tearily, mashing her face to his so they both laugh. She’d lost her _mulki_ jewelry on the hunt for Viddasala, and her nose had been so swollen that she gave up on re-fitting one of her other pieces. By the time the swelling resided, she’d had Dagna make a small band to serve as placeholder. It presses into the hump of Bull’s nose when he nuzzles her.

“Besides,” he adds, after they manage to actually kiss, “I’ve got plans for you. Charger-shaped plans, Kimani Trevelyan. After all, you’re a nobody, now; you’ll need a new job. And as you know, the Chargers don’t currently have a mage on our roster.”

Kimani giggles into his neck. “Whatever you say, _Chief_.”

“ _Shit_ , that works for me. Go on, say it again.”

“Alright _damn_ , you sappy dopes.” Nashan’s voice wavers as she chastises them; she stands behind Asha’s gate with her skinny arms folded, her hip popped with mock attitude. “That’s enough. You’re late by a week and we’re done waiting. Get in here so our mothers can dote on you. There’s so much food that needs eating, which I know is the only reason you brought this big lug along, and Galani can only entertain for so long on his own. He’s getting old.” She’s smiling. They’d gone on ahead, she and Galani, once they all had made it back to Skyhold. Galani had wanted to say goodbye to the Bright Hand first. Nashan, her new family at Herald’s Rest.

Now, they were all here. The villa would be full for a season or two. Bull likes the idea of it; He tugs giddily at Kimani’s hand.

“Come on, Fluff, I’m hungry. Gonna pick you up,” Bull warns, before bringing her with him as he stands. He supports her left side firmly and hooks his other arm under her knees. “This looks good, real good entrance potential; what is it Asha said? I’ve got to be good and fair? This should do it.” He kisses her on the head, nibbling playfully at her hair.

Kimani tugs at the base of his braid, laughing. “My mother does _not_ need to know how you interpret being _good and fair_ to me, if I remember correctly,” he says softly in his ear, and the easy tone of her voice is a surprise that sends a pleasant tingle down his spine. “Now take me to the food, man. I’m going to eat everything and then some, so protect your plate.”

 _Oh, that’s good,_ Bull thinks, ducking under the arch of the gate. _That’s a good start._ He sees immediately that they’ve set up the meal in the garden, and he’s excited; food always tastes better outside. _That’s a **real** good start._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just the epilogue.  
> *sniffle*


	26. Epilogue: Finding

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Here is what happens after.

Wycome in the winter is full of music and spiced wine. Boats from Antiva sit like jewels in the harbor, docked for the season, their holds emptied of their own bottles and re-filled in the winter months by what the eclectic city has to offer.

Kimani had known she wanted to live here when the Chargers once passed through it to get to a forest off its northern border, because of all the music they’d heard on the way. And when they were done clearing the forest and were making their way back down to Ostwick, Kimani had bought a case of the wine to bring back with them.

Now she and Bull have only been here a year, coming up from a few years in Ostwick in the middle of the previous winter despite Kimani being more stomach than person, because she’d pressed; the road would ice for _months_ if they didn’t leave immediately, and between pregnancy and tensions arising again between her and her parents, she just wanted to have their baby far away from both the Trevelyan Estate and the Lia Villa.

 _If I have the baby on the road, well, it_ _’ll be a fun story to tell them._

Thank all she _didn_ _’t_ have the baby on the road; Stitches is a man of many talents, birthing among them, but even he was on edge the entire trip up.

Once they arrived in Wycome Kimani couldn’t take part in the wine, but she’d sang and sang until she gave birth in the small cottage they rented that winter. _With_ a midwife, as the Chargers weren’t yet back from a job off the coast of Antiva. And then, the damned baby sang, too: a little coo to go along with whatever music played.

Bull, once he’d gotten it through his head that this was not only his offspring, but his _child_ , sang a little himself. Mostly he just beat on some drums when the music got too southern, declaring that his kid would have rhythm no matter what.

Kimani sees how it shocks him sometimes, the advent of having a child. Of knowing the child that he helped to make. It’s pretty jarring to Kimani as well, the whole pregnancy had been a lesson in surprises, but Taashath is a sweet baby. He likes to cry and stare with sleepy eyes mismatched in dull hazel and seafoam. He likes to sit in Kimani’s lap and watch her play fadestuff over her fingers, and then gnaw on those fingers once the lights go out. He’s got his own shock of white hair, a cacophony of curls, kinks, and fluff that hide his twitchy little ears and the soft beginnings of horns that Bull hopes are going to spiral because he thinks it’ll look badass.

Kimani can only think about how rough it’s gonna be for the baby to teethe _and_ grow horns, and secretly hopes that his human blood spares him a pair as big as his father’s.

“Fancy letter for you,” Bull says as he comes in from walking Taashath around town. He says that it’s to stretch his legs, but Kimani knows he likes to see everything. And he’s getting Taashath used to seeing everything, too. No kid of theirs is going to be blindsided, not even at one years old. The child is bundled as if they’d moved to the Emprise du Lion and not further north, while Bull still refuses to acknowledge the existence of shirts. “I think the messenger kid wanted to steal it and sell the gold trim.”

Kimani plays fadestuff- weaker since losing the Anchor but also stronger since she’d begun casting again- over her fingers for a moment longer. Bull comes close, turning his hand over so the magic tickles his knuckles. She smiles before reaching for the letter and steals a kiss off of her son’s cold mouth, as well the tip of Bull’s bearded chin.

 “Queen Sudaya must send good news, then. Doubt she’d waste the stationery if I were still a southern opportunist…what was it? _Grasping at the straws of my heritage and sensationalizing myth to regain lost prestige_.”

“…Yeah, she did _not_ like you,” Bull chuckles, remembering their first trip to Rivain. It had been beautiful and lengthy, relaxing despite the queen’s rebuff. “Guess your aunt chimed in on your behalf. Or, something is happening in the world of the weird, and they realize you’re the baddest thing this side of not-evil.”

He says it with such a straight face, and so casually, that Kimani laughs until she bows her head to the tabletop, snorting.

“Wishful thinking at best, Big’un. The _somniari_ on the queen’s retainer are…well, even The Elder had seemed awestruck speaking of them. The Elder must’ve said something in my defense. The queen seemed to respect her a great deal.”

Meeting the rest of her family in Rivain had been interesting. Clan Lia called her Patris because they missed their mother. She met her uncle Daran and her aunt, the matriarch Nashan the Elder, who are by far the most frightening people in the family. Daran is not a mage, but he had been both soldier and spy in two of the assaults on Rivain by the Chantry. He’d followed the war on Corypheus out of old curiosity as much as for survival. Galani looks so much like him that it had pained Kimani to keep his name off of her tongue. She and Madrigal had shared many secret looks between them, fleeting. A year after Kimani returned to Ostwick Galani had set off again, first to meet with his friends in the Bright Hand and then onward to wander, giving little reason but keeping in enough correspondence that Kimani can not complain.

Nashan the Elder is a force, a tall and powerful seer who neither smiles nor laughs but is well-loved by her family. She had asked after Tavi and Asha, to whom there seemed to be no blatant ill-will after 35 years, and Kimani still swears she saw a softness overcome the woman when she told her of Ostwick’s _ta-gibil_.

And yet, her only comment to Kimani? _Your Rivaini is very good._

Her Rivaini hadn’t, however, been good enough to sway Rivain’s Queen Sudaya, who had demanded “The Inquisitor” to court upon learning that she was in the country.

And since she was going, Kimani figured she might as well draw up a proposal to boot. Not every day one gets to meet a queen in control of two very powerful groups of mage.

Two things had shaken Kimani upon arriving to court. First had been the queen herself and second had been that she’d ripped Kimani a new one without batting an eyelash, daring her to show anger at such quick judgement. But as much as Kimani hates the Game, she knows when and where it is imperative to play. Vivienne and Josephine’s lesson hadn’t been completely forgotten in the years since the end.

“Well? What does it say?” Bull sits on their sofa, Taashath now naked and sleeping on his chest. Bull’s hair is wild about his head, the ends curling over his shoulders; he’s found that he likes the hair. Or he likes her pulling it. Kimani thinks both. He has a few streaks of silver at the left temple which he’s pretty proud of.

Kimani reads through the letter, translating a bit slower than usual as she makes sure she’s not missing anything in the decree.

“It’s true, they’ve changed their minds. I’m invited back.  All… _three_ of us are.” Kimani makes a face at Bull. She hadn’t been anywhere near pregnant when they first visited Rivain.

“Your aunt must’ve told them you had a baby.”

“I suppose so. They want us to stay in the palace.”

“Hmm,” Bull frowns, patting Taashath on the butt. “Not sure I like that too much. I don’t want him around all of that intrigue just yet.”

“I agree but at the very least, I will have to. They’re offering me a singular opportunity and I do not think that the Queen will negotiate my terms. But, I will press for a concession for you two. Especially since neither of you are mages and so have no need to be with me, really. I’m sure Madrigal will be glad to see her _niece_ _’s son and husband again after **so** long,_ ” Kimani says in her best Madrigal voice, raising an appraising eyebrow.

Bull laughs. “She still stuck on the “husband,” huh?”

“Does it bother you?”

“Nah, it doesn’t really mean too much different than what I am, but I feel like we should have at least did the whole celebration and food thing if I’m getting called husband. Especially food. Damn, your cousin’s wedding feast was delicious. Maybe we _should_ get married the way you all do,” He chuckles, closing his eyes. Taashath makes a little noise, and wriggles beneath Bull’s large hand.

Kimani smiles at them from her place at the dining table; it is worn but made of very good wood, and it serves as an all-purpose place as well as where Kimani finds she thinks the best.

“You two look very cute,” Kimani says softly, and Bull grunts.

“He’s drooling all over me, it’s great. But um, I’ll send word to Krem and the Red Jenny in Dairsmuid. See how long it’ll take for the boys to work their way over so I can get some head-bashing in for the both of us.”

Kimani had indeed become a part of the Chargers full-time, for a time; it had been both practice with the beautiful prosthetic arm Dagna had made for her, and a release of the frustration that threatened to eat her alive in the months and months after Val Royeaux. She had been so _angry_. So sad. But Bull began taking her along for low-threat, high-octane missions so she could blow some steam. And then she was promoted to full Charger, their official mage, all the way up until she could see the beginnings of Taashath round out her belly. Then, both she and Bull took another break. In the year since Taashath’s birth, she’d only slipped back into that skin once.

Kimani warms herself on the memories. “It feels like forever since my last job.”

“It kind of was. Taashath had only just started walking.”

“That wasn’t too long ago, Bull.”

“Bah, what’s time anyway?” He shrugs, shushing their son when the movement jolts him into a weepy half-waking. “Sorry, little guy.” He looks sheepishly over at Kimani through locks of hair fallen over his face. “So, you’re invited back. That’s good, that’s what you wanted. Now, come over here and add to the pile for a while, _kadan_. Get some of this good baby drool while we’ve still got you all to ourselves. This slob is the best, I swear. Our kid has the best drool this side of the Amaranthine.”

Kimani can’t resist; she folds the letter away and goes to join them, sliding onto Bull as he stretches out on the sofa. Taashath breathes in little squeaks that want to be snores but don’t have enough strength. They both rise and fall with Bull’s steady breathing; the ends of his hair tickle her face until she blows them away.

“You need to trim those splits in the ends,” Kimani murmurs against his skin, feeling unnaturally sleepy now that she’s laying down. She watches Taashath's little hand tighten around her finger.

“Yeah. I need to trim you down a little, too. Braid up little _kadan_ ’s hair again. It’s getting cold.”

“It’s not that cold, Bull.”

“Well he’s not that big, and baby skin is all thin and soft. I don’t know how human infants survive without three coats. Can’t have the kid freezing after all that work getting him here. He’s gonna be the warmest little bean in all of Wycome,” Bull says with a yawn, rubbing lazily into the small of her back.

Kimani had outfitted children for winter in the Circle, though admittedly not infants, wiping their red noses and warming them with a bit of magic in her hands. But Bull had grown up in hot Par Vollen, his skin already thicker than most adult humans by the time he was five. Winter and babies turn him into a worry wart.

Kimani simply kisses him. It could be worse. “Whatever you say, Chief.”

Bull hums, squeezing her ass cheek. “Yeah, that’s never getting old.”

 

…

 

Winter and spring and summer, and finally auspicious autumn settles the air; Kimani is back on Rivaini soil when the wind blows cool and Dairsmuid comes down from its buzzing, hot summer.

Rivain is beautiful. Even its busiest port, thick with the smell of sailors after months at sea, fish, and market, is more beautiful that some of the cities in the south. Full of energy and color and delicious things to eat. Important to keep one’s eyes open. Dwarves and elves, a smattering of qunari all mix in with the sunny brown hues of Rivaini merchants, sailors and nobility. The hair and dress that had brightened Ostwick’s _ta-gibil_ blossom tenfold here; it is common rather than celebratory and for Kimani, it lends new life to the way they braid and twist their hair, the way they drape their clothes. She buys a scarf from a vendor and wraps it loosely around herself so Taashath can play with it, too.

The Elder cannot make it Dairsmuid for another two weeks, but Madrigal greets her with kisses, Bull with a smile, and Taashath by wrestling the child away from his mother and cooing at him in Antivan. Taashath is only startled for a second, calmed when he sees Kimani is more than ready to step forward and take him back, before he presses Madrigal’s cheeks between his hands and peers into her face.

“Who?” He asks in Trade Tongue, and everyone laughs at his serious expression. “Who?”

“Auntie Madrigal,” Kimani says slowly and clearly in Rivaini,  knowing full well that Taashath would refer to his great-aunt as “oh,” for the remainder of the trip. But he nods anyway and lets Madrigal smother him. Lets her carry him. Little sucker secretly loves attention. Tries to play it off, even at nearly two years old.

He _screeches_ when Nashan shows up at their small apartment in the heart of the city, reaching for her and babbling as if he’s lost all of the words he’s gained.

“There’s my sweet boy!” Nashan kisses him until he giggles, hiking him on her hip. “Hello, Tasha! You’re getting so big, you’ll be bigger than me!”

“Yeah!” Taashath screams, laughing.

 Kimani doesn’t know why her cousin is here, but she hasn’t seen her since spring and won’t complain one bit. They hug fiercely, crushing Taashath between them.

“I was wondering when you’d get your ass back up here,” Nashan beams, nodding at Bull and kissing her teeth when he ruffles her trinket-laden hair.

“I thought you were in Nevarra until Tevinter?” Kimani asks. Nashan had expressed interest in learning more about the _mortalitasi_ , and so Kimani sent word to the mage that came to Skyhold in hopes of training her years ago, Viuus Anaxas. He'd eagerly accepted "a relation of The Inquisitor." Name still got her a few things in a pinch.

“Important death mage business with a friend of master Anaxas before I head back over to him, then on to see the original master Pavus himself. Have you spoken to him?”

Kimani has; she and Dorian make it a point to speak once a month at least. The Magisterium makes him tired, but he is no less determined to put his country on a new road. They laugh about assassination attempts and Wycome’s debauchery. Depending on who’d seen or spoken to Galani last, they update each other on their favorite, elusive blood mage. It’s always good to hear Dorian’s voice; Kimani wishes she could go with Nashan to see him. Introduce him to Taashath, whom Dorian has only spoken to and who wears the infant bracelet he’d sent after hearing of the surprise pregnancy.

“He’s so eager to see you,” Kimani says. Poor Dorian couldn’t even get his words out when he learned that Nashan was to visit, the danger in Minrathous be damned. _How I_ _’ve missed that rambunctious thing. Oh, I can’t wait._

“Good. I don’t travel countries for tepid welcomes, isn’t that right Tasha?” Nashan nuzzles the child, who gives an enlightened “yeah!” as he wraps one of her locs in his fist. “So I’m taking _my_ son to get sweets from market, by the way. Never bringing him back. You all go fu-er, congregate, or something,” Nashan raises her eyebrow at them before running off with their child.

 Taashath just waves, the loc around his hand now in his mouth.

“Well. You heard her.” Bull scoops Kimani up, walking them over to the apartment’s small, partially concealed balcony. Wisteria blossoming along the walls and rail lends it a bit of fragrant romance. “Let’s go _congregate_.”

“The balcony?” Kimani strokes his beard. Her prosthetic arm hooks over his shoulder, and she thinks she’ll need it for whatever he’s clearly been planning since they stepped foot in the apartment.

“Is that disagreement? Cus I’ve got about two other places off the top of my head.” Bull slings his voice low and nips at her fingers. “I’m saving a bit of creative fun for the next time Nashan decides to steal our son. Mostly because the fun parts are still packed away.”

Kimani throws her head back, laughing. So Bull knew Nashan would be here. Fucking figures. “You should have packed them on top!”

“Taashath _gnaws_ on stuff! What if he got it open?”

“He’s two.”

“He’s _our kid_ ,” Bull chuckles, standing still. Then he rocks her, gaze so pointed that Kimani shivers. “So? Balcony?”

“Balcony,” she agrees. “Spirits help us not be heard.”

“Not a chance in the Void, _kadan_. I haven’t had you loud in longer than I care to remember.”

 

*

 A week later she goes to formally greet the queen of Rivain alone. She dresses simply, which is bound to cause gossip, in a fine white muslin dress that leaves her arms bare. She wears her prosthetic because she likes the way it glows where the rune maintains veins of her fadestuff. It’s almost menacing, the way Dagna had braided and bended the metal; the Arcanist had been going for art to complement its utility, and Kimani still loves it after four years. They’d gotten well acquainted. They’d adjusted. Work well together.

Aside from her _mulki_ , sleek and jeweled and a gift from The Elder, she wears heavy earrings and two thin gold chains that loop and lay over both the necklace made by her mother,  and her dragon's tooth. Gives them a bit of glamour.  Her hair is too short to twist beads and stones into, so she lay another gold chain around her head. Her whole arm is littered with metal and stone bracelets, her left shoulder tattooed beneath the harness of her prosthetic. Madrigal had looped some chains around those straps, too, before rubbing red ochre on her lips and eyelids.

To finish, her Antivan aunt had fitted a gilded sash around her waist to accent full hips.

“Good enough?” Kimani had asked after a few moments of Madrigal staring her down.

“Yes,” She'd replied, rubbing her chin. “You look gentle. And formidable. And humble. Forget the costume you wore your first time in her presence. She must see that you are changed and you are sure. And you are authentic. This, I think, is you.”

“Auntie, a suit of black, arcane armor is me, but this is a good second.”

Now, she hands her staff- a white-runed bend of oak inlaid with copper put together by herself and Bull, a hobby— to the palace guard. The protocol is non-negotiable, though she knows and these guards know that the staff is more decoration than weapon. But they check its enchantments and return it nonetheless.

“Lady Kimani.” A tall, slim woman with long and waving hair greets her in singsong Rivaini, white teeth gleaming an indulgent smile in a dark, sunny face. “Welcome, welcome.” She clasps Kimani’s hands warmly.

“Lady Shanti! You remember me,” Kimani says,  relieved to see a friendly face. “Spirits, it’s been years.”

The woman dips her graceful neck, and Kimani catches the earthy perfume in her hair. “One so beautiful as yourself, how could I forget? I only lament that it’s taken you so long to return. But I’ve heard you are now a mother, congratulations to you.”

“Thank you, but has the whole court heard of my child?” Kimani asks, incredulous. “I had no clue my business was so popular.”

“Well, when Queen Sudaya takes an interest, whether positive or negative, so does the court. Besides, the decision for your return was a public affair.”

Shanti offers Kimani her arm, and the women begin the trek down the long, empty hall. Pillars line the walkway on either side, carved with history and myth and spirits; light filters through where the ceilings go glassy.

“Lady Shanti, would you know… _why_ the Queen has changed her mind?” Kimani tries to sound nonchalant though her heart is racing. She suddenly wants Taashath, just to hold him to her. But she was afraid that even bringing him and Bull would cement the queen in her request for them all to stay in the palace. Better they stay out of sight, for everyone’s sakes.

Shanti stops them a few paces away from the grand double-doors that lead into the great hall.

“She believes you, now,” Shanti says quietly. “The Dreaming Court has seen…strange things. And the Council of Seers has backed you. Partially. More than enough to bring you here. I regret not to know more than this.”

“Spirits.” Kimani swallows.

“ _Yes_.” Shanti nods to the door where two guards wait patiently. “Shall we?”

As they are led into the throne room, Kimani thinks _mellamu_ with a smile; sun shines in through the mottled ceiling, through the high windows, and reflects off of the polished mosaic floor. Court lines both walls of the room, the nobility of Rivain dressed in lavish finery that easily, _easily_ dwarfs her own. Kimani bows her head to the nobles as she walks past and hears them murmur as they recognize white hair and forged arm. She sees a few faces go guarded, masked.

If only they knew how the once-Inquisitor hates the Game. Still, she curtsies smooth and low to the two small groups on either side of the queen who watch her curiously. Kimani remembers: On the left, the Council of Seers. On the right, the Dreaming Court.

Kimani bows lowest to the queen, who sits on her throne with a still grace.

The queen, who is so _familiar_.

Kimani remembers the first time she met Queen Sudaya. She’d been confused, startled, before remembering the story of Asha Campana: Queen of Rivain and wife of the Antivan King Alonzo, who married each and every one of her children and her grandchildren into the various royal bloodlines of Thedas. _Every_ country, save Ferelden. She was the Queen Mother of Thedas, indeed.

And this Queen Sudaya had truly continued in the spirit of the Mother. Kimani followed, as she follows now, the familiar, delicate lines of the queen’s face. High cheekbones and full, full lips: sloping, soft nose. Almond eyes that glitter a warm brown and dissect as easily as they seduce. Sharp, calculating. Delicate neck. Deep, dark skin.

She knows this face. Some days, she misses it. Some days she regrets the last words to her old…friend? Kimani doesn’t know. But she regrets sometimes the threat she’d left in her wake, the weight left for them to carry. But as far as Kimani knows, the Divine sits her Sunburst Throne as well as ever. Sure and absolute.

With a still grace.

Queen Sudaya had smiled softly, the only true smile given that day. _So, you know her,_ it seemed to say.

“Kimani Trevelyan, former Inquisitor, we welcome you back,” the queen says now, bidding her rise with a graceful flourish.

“I’m glad to be here, Majesty," Kimani says, clasping her hands behind her back. She nearly feels like her old self, even in a dress, as so many eyes watch her.

Queen Sudaya nods. “I have considered your request often in the last few years, Trevelyan. I have mulled over the probability and over the chance of its importance being as vast as you suggest. You are a compelling speaker, full of emotion, but I am interested in fact.”

“Yes, Majesty.”

“And the fact has become that your conjectures about this Fen’Harel are worth investigating. You understand this?”

Of course she does. She’d read, and re-read and re-read the queen’s letter. She’d even read it again before coming this morning, Bull sleepily joking that she’d burn holes into the paper for reading it so much.

But Kimani nods. “Yes, Majesty.”

“Excellent. And so, to fully investigate these claims, to find as much fact as possible, we have chosen to accept you into training by both the Royal Dreaming Court and the Royal Council of Seers.”

The court buzzes softly, as if it didn’t already know. But they must play. Kimani keeps her face neutral, tries to keep it soft; she is often told she is too hard, and Rivain’s Game returns actions in kind.

“Do you accept this?”

Oh, this decision that has plagued her for years both before and after Taashath. The decision that had nearly broken her and Bull.

 _I_ _’m with you_ , he’d said finally, after weeks of stalemates and quiet nights. _Fuck me, fuck **you** , I_ _’m with you. So long as you’re certain and kadan, you better be real fucking certain._

“Yes,” Kimani says, lifting her chin. She lets her eyes sweep over either side of the queen so those most important councilors see her. “I accept.”

“Good. If you hadn’t, this would have been a wasted trip,” the Queen quips, smirking as her court laughs. Kimani allows herself a small smile.

“As you say.”

“And I do. Well,” Queen Sudaya says, clapping her hands together. The Seer’s ring that hangs from her own nose glitters with tiny pearls and one small, clear, centered diamond. “Shall we begin?”

**-End-**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WE MADE IT! Thank yall so much for following me all this way! I hope the ride was as fun for yall as it was for me. <3  
> Questions, comments, concerns are welcome! I'd love to know what you think now that we're done. You can also it me up on tumblr. :)

**Author's Note:**

> You can always find me at belowbedlam.tumblr.com


End file.
